Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge

This weekend was full of a lot of poor decisions. This is a really long blow-by-blow so skip it if quotidian stuff is boring to you. I wrote to remind myself that one bad decision often leads to another in an effort to try to recoup the loss from the first mistake. And then sometimes fate just intervenes and you have to accept the loss in the name of fun and safety.

I feel bad for the commenter who says that their mom had bad things happen to them. That’s regretful. But an anecdote of one person doesn’t make for a national statistic of people who bit off more than they could chew with their mortgage. It’s shared blame, no doubt, but the first finger points directly to the person in the mirror.

Starting with Friday:
Friday was actually a very good day for financial decisions. I got a free lunch. I ate all my lunch food for the week. I went clubbing for free. I wasn’t on a guest list, but the email the DJ sent out said free before midnight. The bouncer tried to charge me $10. I told him no way. The email said free before midnight. He asked if I was on the guest list, I could get in for half. I said wasn’t on the guest list because the email said free before midnight. I stood my ground and didn’t pay a cover. A nonchalant attitude helps in psyching out the bouncer. I spent $7+tip on a cocktail, got two free sodas for tipping the bartender a dollar on one of them, and tipped the bathroom attendant $1, because it’s de rigeur (And I really hate doing this, but I hate even more the dirty look she gives when you don’t.) I spent $10 for the night. Sounds pretty good, huh?

Saturday:
I didn’t eat much. I spent all day doing laundry and set a crockpot going. By the time I was to step out for the night, I was starved. First move? The ATM for my weekly allowance. Then, Wendy’s for dinner, $6.09. That wasn’t a bad choice because I was going to meet friends at a posh place that would have pricey food. The club was hosting an experimental music show. Cover $5. Total for two drinks for me and one beer for a friend, $20. We get bored and we hear Derrick Carter is going to play another club. Cover $15. OUCH. I haven’t paid $15 for cover unless it’s a special event. I didn’t think it was going to be THAT special, but we were having fun so I paid it. I bought one more drink for myself, $7+tip. I got a bottle of water $3, and a two free sodas courtesy of one really friendly guy trying to meet the charge minimum and the nice bartender from the night before who recognized me. Another dollar for her.

The music was great. Derrick Carter was amazing. I loved it, even if one of my friends didn’t. I was transported. It made me fell young again to dance to old school house music and get all groovy on the dance floor. It was still a lot of money for the cover, but it was pretty worthwhile. It would have been a better value at $10 or 12 bucks, but $15 wasn’t enough to make me feel cheated by the experience.

Afterwards we decide to leave and get something to eat, circa 3am. I buy three empanadas. Yummy. $10.50 + tip because my drunken friends were giving the guys at the counter a hard time. (Yes, friendship will cost you. Keep reading.) I eat one and take the other two with me. It’s well after closing time of the Metro station, so I’m taking a cab back to pick up my car. As we wind down the night, clearly one of us is in no shape to drive. Of course, I am the sucker to drive her home and crash on her couch, adding cab fare on top of the evening’s expenditures. GREAT. I am doing the mental tally and feeling my ears burn because I know I should have left the club before the Metro closed. I am an idiot and the cost of my mistake is exponential. Metro rides are $1.35. Now I’m looking at a $20 cab ride.

Sunday:
I get up, hail a cab. I now have to race back to get my car, pick up a 2 for 1 brunch entree coupon from my apartment and hightail it to Georgetown to meet a friend. Cost of the cab $16.50 plus tip. I get a dollar change for my twenty. Now, here I am thinking that I’m being smart with the two-for-one coupon. But I get lucky, my friend can expense brunch and so she picks up my tab. (Paolo’s in Georgetown and Reston Town Center. If you are local, email me for the coupon. It’s good till the end of September. I can’t find it on the website and the Baltimore locations aren’t included.)

We decide to kick around since it’s really her first day off in 8 or 9 days. We start to shop. As I got dressed on Saturday, vanity reared its very ugly head. I felt really out of fashion on Friday night and I’m feeling fat because I cannot fit into my clothes anymore.I have let myself go and it’s not pretty. You can see where this is going. I walk into Commander Salamander on Wisconsin Avenue, reminiscing to my friend about its punk rock history. Inside, I was just going to browse, but my friend spots a shirt she wants. That gives me an idea. I search for a shirt on sale. It says $32, marked down to $23. Still expensive, but this single purchase will stop me from buying a head to toe new outfit. As I check out, the salesman says it’s $17.87 total. WOO HOO. Even cheaper than I thought! I spent $18 for a new t-shirt so I wouldn’t spend $100 buying a whole outfit.

We go to several shoe stores. Luckily for me, both stores we visited are out of my size or the one I want has a weird arch that hurts my foot. My friend chats up a salesman and he’s really nice. He offers her a discount on some boots, but she can’t take him up on it because the boots don’t look right. She asks when they get new stuff in and he says every 10 days or so. Perfect. We tell him we’ll be back in another day and now she has set up a very good possible buying opportunity. It helps that we were friendly, patient and undemanding.

We head into the mall for a public bathroom. I see a shoe store again and now I see very expensive insoles. I realize that Dr. Scholl’s might be fine for me, but I like the idea of leather cushioned insoles. They are expensive and though I balk at the price, I cannot quite ask for him to slice a little off the top. If it had been a mom and pop shop, I would have, but I just could not do it at a chain store. However, these insoles are destined for an old pair of shoes I love. $120 Joan and Davids I got for $80 at an outlet store many years ago. I was about to toss them out, but they are too comfy. So again, I spend money to save money. I spent $40 to rescue my old shoes so I wouldn’t spend $80 on new ones. The best part is that these insoles appear to be solid and I can put them into the next pair of shoes when it’s finally time to say good bye to my Joan and David’s. So $40 to rescue more than one pair of shoes.

Overall, I think I made three HUGE errors. 1) I shouldn’t have gone to the second nightclub. I could have called it a night at midnight, but no. I was greedy for more fun. Now I am exhausted and wondering how I’m going to make it through a whole day of work on Monday. 2) While I did save money on parking in DC by taking the metro, it was grossly negated by the cab ride in the morning. The only succor is that my friend got home safely and she told me later that she had a punishing hangover. I couldn’t live with myself if we had let her drive home and something happened. 3) I LEFT THE TWO EMPANADAS IN HER FRIDGE. RATS!

The total damage was $120 cash out of pocket, i.e. my entire weekly allowance, because I ended up using the VISA gift card I got from Goodyear for my tire purchase. While it wasn’t exactly free money, at least it wasn’t cash I had in hand. Thank God a I’m expecting a few free meals this week through a professional event.