Chaos Attraction

Money, Money, Money

2006-02-06, 3:19 p.m.

So, one way or another, I suddenly have a fair chunk of change coming my way. I now have a roommate, so I am back to my "regular" amount of disposable cash. And presumably starting next month I'll have a bit more disposable cash to add to that pile.

This is grrrrrreat! But in a way, it's weirding me out.

You'd think after having been with Dave all of those years and being fairly broke during that time (between travel expenses, food expenses, laptop buying, etc.), I would have learned the lesson of How To Spend Less Money then. But, nooooo. It took having a big ol' panicking shit fit right before vacation when I realized I'd hosed my savings during the summer of Dad going into the hospital, with no roommate, to do that.

I do have to say that it has been good for me, though. I stopped buying a season of a TV show on DVD every month. I stopped blowing $50-60 bucks a week on buying lunch and dinner on campus- now I eat salad or Cupanoodles for lunch and go hungry for dinner. Okay, not fabulous for my overall well-being, not as remotely satisfying to the stomach as getting a Caesar salad wrap, and I bloody hate packing a lunch, but it's nice for weight loss and the pocketbook. Ditto not running out and having a $60 book spending spree a few times a month or however often I did that- now I stick to e-books or borrowing most of the time. Or blowing $70 on yarn at the local yarn store- I either go yarn shopping at craft stores and stick to Red Heart-esque stuff, or use up my stash. And every time I'm tempted to go buy a shirt with an amusing slogan on Cafepress- I just say no. And as for buying large amounts of groceries- um, yeah, I tag along with Mom at the grocery store and beg for her to pay for it. Yes, I am very ashamed at that.

All things considered, it hasn't been that bad to only spend money (mostly) when I outright have to.

But now I'm kind of like, what do I do with this extra money?

On Friday when I first found out about the raise, I HAD TO do some celebratory money-blowing. HAD TO. I ran out the door at lunch to hit the yarn store to spend over $60 on yarn for a cardigan I want to make. (If this massively interests you, check the craft blog for more.) Alas, they were almost totally bloody out of the required kind of yarn I needed, and I was all pissed off I couldn't spend money.

Of course, on Saturday I then went and blew $45 on books and magazines, and then decided to order yarn from a place that sold similar stuff for $25 cheaper. So I did do some happy blowing of money. But after that...

Well, I really shouldn't just go whole hog again. If I end up deciding to move this year, I'll need the extra funds for first/last/deposit money, so I should save for that. Mom's all like, "Now you can pay me back faster!" (Right, it's gonna take me about 5 years to pay her back even without a raise. Doing it "faster" isn't really a concern of mine when it's 5 years of money owed.) Then there's the whole "Didn't I want to start paying for a shrink?" thing. So one way or another, I should be saving more money.

So realistically, I should stay on my Austerity Spending plan, only making a few changes (such as er, paying for my own fucking $100 worth of groceries). I am just worried about the temptation to spend money, because I know I have it and I can.

Just look at me this morning: I bought a bag of salad yesterday (when buying my own fucking groceries, ahem) and was going to make lunch for a few days. But I forgot to make it last night, and this morning I was too damned tired to want to. Now I'm all hungry, and ate a large amount of chips for lunch because the other food I have sitting around is Cupanoodles and those chow mein wet-nuke-n-serve things, and I'm bloody sick of eating those things.

Under the Austerity Spending Plan, this meant that too bloody bad, I'm just going to have to go hungry, then. But knowing that I do, in fact, have the money to go off and buy food...even a danged bagel with spread... Oh fucking hell, THE TEMPTATION!

So in short, I'm kind of worried as to how well I'm going to hold up with this plan. I'll really have to make sure I reset how much I'm automatically putting into the savings/pay Mom back accounts once I know exactly how much disposable income I'm going to be having on a regular basis.


In other news, the hell that is Valentine's Day is coming up. Yeefuckinghaw.

I have both good news and bad news about this.

On the good side, people at work want to "go back to grade school" and have people get ahold of kid Valentines and put them on everyone's desks. Which I think is great and sure as fuck beats the "who got the biggest roses" competition. Grade school's the only time during which VD does not suck, after all, because EVERYONE gets to play.

So now I have to dig up 40 kid valentines. Hm, where does one get those, anyway? Drugstore?

On the bad news side, stupid me didn't think when she was signing up for volunteer hours that Tuesday = working all VD night. I am dearly hoping that anyone going through the CC on that night will be single or non-schmoopy about the holiday, and everyone who has to be with their boyfriend will be elsewhere.

But speaking of...that means I am going to be entirely ditched when it comes to my shift. So far, 2 out of 4 people have said they won't be there on that day. The engaged chick is in Israel (and without her boy, no less! I find this rather impressive that she'd be separated from him at that time, actually.), and the girl that's "sorta dating somebody" is bailing. (You'd think the only one who's "sorta" dating would at least be kind of a tossup as to whether or not she cuts out on work. Then again, the last time I was "sorta" dating someone around VD he bailed on our date that night. Bastard.) That leaves me and the girl with a boyfriend...and my manager said yesterday, "Yeah, I don't think she'll show up either 'cause she has a boyfriend. It'll probably be just you and me." She's single too.

Argggggggggh. Cleaning the entire fucking building by myself, oh joy. That'll really put the capper on things, not getting to even leave the building until 11.

I think I'll have to try to talk the manager into just ordering pizza that night. If only two people are there, why even fucking bother with assigning people potluck dishes?


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