Monday Spending Update

Oh, last week. Last week I didn't do as well as I wanted. First, here's what I spent money on that I was "allowed" to spend money on:

• A night out w/a friend

And then, here's what else I spent money on:

• Another night out w/friend
• A nightcap on a night out w/another friend
• $2 on evil vending machine brownies
• lunch & latte on Friday (in my defense, I worked through lunch)
• Random gatorade purchase
  

Looking back, even with this week's three nights out, I only averaged one night out (where I spent money) per week. Alas, that is not really what I'm going for. :-D The good news is that if you add up all my other cheating episodes, I spent less than $20 on non-essentials. And that is pretty damn good. Anyway, it's a new month and there are some subtractions & additions to the rules!

So, the original essentials list still applies with a limit to groceries (once a week) & an added miscellaneous category (like postage & other little things that pop up). And here are the exceptions:

• entertainment - movies, museums & other activities that add experience to my life, not things (limited to $50 month)
  
• dinner out (or breakfast or lunch or drinks) with friends or family (limited to once a week)
• charitable contributions ($50 a month... this should have been added originally)
• new brakes (not sure if this should be an exception as not crashing into a tree is probably essential to my life)
• file taxes (also essential to me: not going to jail)
• art/craft supplies (limit $20... have a new project in the works & will need to pick up a couple of things)
• slush fund (limit $20... this is for the occasional treat {latte, lunch when i'm busy, maybe vogue}, it's not for anything else)

All in all, I think the first month of this experiment went rather well. And I'm looking forward to month two.