Goal and a Payday

Wallet Expenses

• $1.08 Bagel
• $0.80 Garlic toast
• $7.38 Smokes
• $8.07 Groceries

And today is payday!! As a state employee, I get paid once a month on the last weekday of the month. This makes month long budgeting an absolute necessity, but I still suck at it. So long as I have a positive balance in my checking account at the end of every month, I feel okay. Last month I got down to $12.36, and I didn’t like it much. Heck, I freak out when I see that my bank balance dips below $1,000 (which it does every month, so I don’t know why I’m surprised).

Yesterday may be the last time I buy a bagel from the grill in the morning. I brought an apple and a V8 from home this morning and together they were very filling, lower in bad stuff, higher in good stuff, and cheaper. I’m not seeing any lose to losing the bagel and if I really want a bagel, I can always go get one. Okay, I can see one lose. The guys that run the grill depend on people purchasing food there for their livelihood… But I have to remind myself that I alone am not responsible for whether or not they make or break at the end of each month. But they are kind of my friends! And I’m still not responsible for them… am I? That $1.08 over the course of a month is over $20 I could be either saving or spending elsewhere. Over a year, that’s over $250!! Dang, whoever thought it was possible to spend $250 on bagels for one? Yikes! Yes, I could be buying my bagels from the store and toasting them at home myself, but I’ve not managed to wake early enough to do this on a consistent basis. That’s something else I’m working on, waking earlier in the morning.

The grocery expense yesterday: I really hate doing this, but I went to the store mid-week. I baked taters last night to go with supper and we didn’t have sour cream. A total travesty, I know. While there, I thought it would be nice to have cheese and green onions on the taters as well, and we were out of creamy peanut butter. So I picked up those four things. Currently, that $8.07 was involved in feeding the three of us for supper last night, and me for lunch today, and it still has a long ways to go! We haven’t even touched the PB yet, and there’s still plenty left of each of the other three items as well.

One of these days, I hope to be able to post that I’ve spent NOTHING over the course of a day… maybe that should be a goal and not just a wish. Okay, new goal. I would like to have at least ONE DAY during the upcoming month of May during which I do not spend a cent.

Yay for goals!