Nickel & Diming Yourself

Kirby & Kira both write about their micro-level spending. I know I have a problem with buying things with cash. But lately I’ve been doing the John D. Rockefeller thing and writing down all cash outlays into a little notebook. Doing so means that I spend less. I am so frickin’ lazy that I will skip buying something so I don’t have to pull out my dorky notebook. (It’s an expensive Moleskine, which I bought as a DIY gift for someone, but he found the lost thing I was trying to replace with the gift.)

As far as this week’s spending is concerned, the poor weather has driven me indoors and I’ve skipped out on my regular weekly social events. While I’ve saved money, that means I’ve run through the pantry really quickly already and I’ve spent WAY TOO MUCH time in front of the computer playing video games and IMing with my friends.

I’ve been disbursing cash to myself on Fridays since that leaves me money for the weekend when I’m most likely to blow it all. Then I can firmly discipline my spending the rest of the week and bring my lunch to work. As it is, I went home three times this week to have lunch with a co-worker. I bought us some bread, cheese and chips to go with a giant leftover spiral cut ham her roommate bought but wasn’t consuming. I figured it was only my fair share since I was eating her mustard, ham, soda and nuking it in the microwave to make the cheese all melty. I told my friend today that this was going to be my last day of ham. The sodium consumption was just too much for me. I love salt, but that was overkill. I think we are going to go home to her house for lunch once or twice a week from now on. She, like me, is a singleton and into saving money. (I don’t know how I do it but I ferret them all out! I must be exceptionally being nosy.)

The only things I bought this weekend on credit cards were two books and gas. There is so much cash leftover from my allowance this week that I suspect my bar tab tomorrow night for happy hour will be paid in cash, which is preferred anyway. I’m not a heavy drinker so I think I can probably get away with $25 for the whole night unless someone decides to go clubbing.

I’m trying not to buy food on credit under any circumstances. It’s helping. If only a little. This means that the $80 I have left over from last week is combined with my allowance. Since I am skipping a ski outing on Sunday to do an upgrade, I will have money leftover again next week unless I visit a bookstore. (That’s weekend #2 this year I’m giving up. But It’s only going to be 4 hours like it was the last time.)

I balance transferred a credit card and will soon pay off the rest of it next Friday. This card currently lives in my desk and I have no desire to use it. Now I’m focused on my second card. It’s the ubiquitous Citi Dividend Rewards card and I’ve now stuck it into my desk. I called them today to see if they could lower my rate even further, but they said that at 14.xx%, I’m getting the lowest rate they can offer. FINE. I would balance transfer it off, but I don’t want to open any new accounts right now. I want to keep my head low and just pay things down.

After having some commenters tell me to use my emergency fund to pay my debt, I turned off my automatic savings into the emergency fund for now. I kind of wanted to keep it since I am coveting a laptop for blogging away from home. (I hate being a hermit in the house glued to the computer all the time. I would love to sit at a cafe and sip an espresso like other people.) But that will have to wait till I figure out Vista vs Mac OS X Leopard.

So there you go. It’s not a nickel and dime run down of everything I bought. I don’t think you want to read that. (But I could if you all begged for it.)

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