Spending Saturday & Monthly Reflection

Big things have happened in the past few days - although not so much for your reading pleasure, as you may have noticed. My Saturday Spending round up is being posted on a Tuesday. Whoops!

First, let's take care of the little details. Essentially, no spending to report in the past week. I did buy a bottle of red wine to take to dinner at my parent's house on Saturday in honor of my brother visiting. I included that in my general grocery budget, bringing my grand total on grocery expenses this month to $205.21.

I am very happy with that number.

As you know, other than bacon I didn't purchase any meat this month. We had enough in the deep freeze to last us the rest of our lives. Or...you know...a month, as it were. It might be a bit of a challenge in April to keep the spending that low. I am aiming for $225 and crossing my fingers.

I know the month is not technically over, but I feel confident that I won't be making any purchases in the next couple days, so that means my only miscellaneous spending this month was a $25 Groupon for an art class. Side note: that art class was a HUGE joke. Has anyone ever asked for a Groupon refund? Because I think this really might be deserving.

My 3 month miscellany purchase total now comes to $320.95 - only $20.95 over budget. If I hadn't bought that stupid Groupon, I would have totally made up for the February fling in Portland. Ah, well.

There were also some eBay related expenses (i.e. tape and the 9% fee that eBay charges on sales). I'm not counting these anywhere in the budget. I'm hoping that I can pay these fees and put my eBay earnings in savings. In other words, I'm having my cake and eating it too. As long as I can afford to pay my credit card bill in full and still put my designated amount into savings/Roth IRA, I'll have accomplished the impossible.

Perhaps that extra money I found lying around the house has a little something to do with it.

I also asked my husband to save an extra $200 every month. He currently contributes to his 401K and a Roth IRA, but I can see there's room for more. I reasoned that since I now make his lunch to take to work every day (and that food is included in our regular grocery budget) that he could afford to put the money he used to spend on eating out in a savings account. He agreed that made sense.

Then my husband's company sent out a notice with their pay stubs that the 401K match is discontinued until further notice. One step forward, one step back. At least he still has a job though, right?!

Saturday NO Spend

I stuck with my goal this week of not spending any unnecessary money. Besides the phone bill, groceries and gas (which are all in the budget) I didn't spend any money! Pretty proud of myself.

Nevertheless, I am cruising Payless. As I focus more and more on being frugal, I keep finding cute things at prices far less than I've typically paid. I'm a little scared this is a dangerous path to be walking down, though. I don't want to spend money on things I really don't need - even if those things are cheap!

The one thing I do have to spend money on (technically part of next week's spending) is my sister's birthday. But this is also worked into the budget - pretty easy to predict the coming of a family birthday!

Saturday Spending

I don't have a whole lot of spending to report for the past week. Mostly I've just paid fixed bills, and also have a couple charges at the post office and my first invoice at eBay for 9% of all my sales. I don't see those charges as "spending" though since I ultimately brought in money I wouldn't have otherwise, and the buyers are the ones actually paying for shipping.

My one personal charge was a $25 Groupon certificate for a 3 hour acrylic workshop at Daniel Smith art store in Seattle. I have always been fairly artistic, although never threw myself into it much. I recently started painting with acrylics when my sister in law pointed out she could easily paint me the wall art I was considering purchasing from Crate & Barrel for a lot less money. Instead, I had her teach me how to use acrylics, and have fallen in love with it. Art supplies are expensive, but certainly not as expensive as art! I'd even like to see if I could earn some side income from my art once I get a little more skilled and prolific with my works. I only have so much wall space of my own, after all!

So, that's my spending for the week. All in all, my budget is looking pretty good and repairing from our weekend in Portland last month. If I can limit my miscellaneous purchases to this art class this month, and keep my grocery purchases a lot smaller than usual, I might even be able to catch up with the extra splurge last month!

A Super Delayed Spending Saturday

I've been procrastinating about looking at my spending for the past week because I was afraid to confront it, but after taking a gander I'm actually not doing so bad.

I've made way more money than I thought possible selling my lightly worn clothes on Ebay. As with any unexpected windfall, spending that money is far too easy. Of course, the Nordstrom catalog showed up around the same time and I fell in love with a pair of Tory Burch espadrilles. I rushed to my computer to see if they were even in stock still.

(I was fairly certain they'd already be sold out, torturing me like the sparkly Enzos I didn't get to wear at my wedding whateverwhocaresoverityeahright.)

They were still in stock! And selling in only whole sizes. I immediately purchased 2 pairs.

By the time they came, I was feeling sort of like they were an unnecessary purchase (duh). I had sort of talked myself into them by deciding I'd list some of my lightly worn and worn-no-more shoes and if they sold for a reasonable amount I could keep the new ones. But when they came, they looked only about 75% as adorable as they did in the picture. Okay, they were adorable, but also kind of impractical, and so looked less cute in my bedroom than they would on a models feet strolling around St. Tropez.

So, I decided to Ebay them. By now they were sold out online in both sizes. I figured if I could make a profit, all the merrier, and if not I'd return them. When the pair that actually did fit sold, I was a little sad, but at that point there was no turning back, and I'm very happy with the roughly $60 profit I made. It helps ease the pain.

Other than that, it turns out I didn't really spend anything this week except a little at the post office saying goodbye to old clothing and a new roll of packaging tape.

And yes, I purchased it online through Ebates before picking it up at Lowes and earned 2% of the purchase price back. It's what I do!

Spending Saturday | The Dream of the 90's

Is the chicken local?

We spent last weekend in Portland visiting a friend and attending a wedding. If you haven't yet seen Fred Armisen's new show Portlandia, well....you're missing out. Especially if you've ever been to Portland, or lived through the 90's.

As expected, we spent a little money on our weekend. First, I bought Pringles for $2.29 for the road trip. Then, I picked up the tab for some of our meals - $133.33 - way over my monthly allowance, but what can you do. I'm feeling kind of flush with extra money from my eBay selling and I figured that this was our Valentine's Day celebration. The hubs also spent $143.99. Considering how much we ate out, I'm actually pretty happy with those numbers.

Considering how far outside my budget plan they are, I'm not.

I did have a small victory when my friend and I stopped into a clothing store. I saw a sweater I liked, and even went so far as to try it on and calculate the exact price since it was on sale for 25% off. Plus, no tax in Oregon! It was hard, but I walked away.

I'm glad I did.

I recently read a couple articles about being addicted to shopping. I'm definitely not a shopaholic. I don't get a physical high from a purchase or a down afterwards that leads me into a spending cycle. But I can see how easy it would be to become one. We're all shoppers to some extent - you just can't get past it, no matter how self sufficiently you live - and even if I don't experience an actual rush, I still see things that I want and it makes me happy to have them. But when I go over my budget, it makes me bummed.

Certainly I'm lucky that when I feel bummed, I don't think to go shopping for a quick fix. I just try to put my spending on lock down, and be really mindful about what I need and don't. Even though I don't need to go away and eat out for every meal over the weekend, I do need to visit my friend in Portland once in awhile. I do need to have some fun. I don't need to live my life like a hermit, and every once in awhile I can splurge in one area and cut back in another.

Like cutting back my closet, and turning it into cash in the bank :)

If you're in Portland and in a spending mood (I know, I'm a horrible influence!) I highly recommend Papa Haydn and 50 Plates. We eat at both these places every time we're in Portland - they are amazing!

Spending Saturday | A Weekly Spending Round Up

In order to keep up with my budget, I've decided to take a look at my spending for the previous week every Saturday. Here's my spending round up!

I purchased groceries last Friday and came in under budget but didn't leave a whole lot of room for additional produce runs later in the month. I managed not to make any more grocery runs this week - plus one for me! - even though we are now solidly out of milk and onions.

I purchased a trunk to be used for storage/coffee table from Goodwill - $14.23. My husband's not in love with it. It may end up on Craigslist. If so, hopefully I can get $15 for it.

I had to have a mirror cut to replace our spare bathroom mirror that broke during installation 3 years ago - $189.98. Gah! I still have the two old mirrors that were replaced sitting in a spare bedroom waiting to be listed on Craigslist. I'll also be listing the broken one that could easily be cut down to a smaller size since the crack is right along the edge. Hopefully this will recoup some of that painful expense.

I purchased a chip and dip set for a wedding we're attending tonight - $31.90. I purchased online through Ebates, so I'll be seeing 3% of that back. It was either that or put $50 in an envelope. I don't know the couple well, so I decided to go with the cheapest option and for a night out with free dinner and drinks I think it's worth it. Rumor has it there's going to be a vodka fountain...

I also made $17.50 from Half Price Books and sold $274.30 of clothing I wasn't wearing on eBay. So all in all not too bad. One big painful but necessary and not unexpected expense, and quite a windfall so far from the declutter project!