Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge

I hope everyone had a nice Labor Day. I ran off again to the GW National Forest on a camping trip.

$100-125 groceries (ice, beer, meat, etc.)
$55 chainsaw and oil
$50 power inverter
$30 grill top for campfire
$25 gas (at least what I paid. Boyfriend topped off the tank two other times)
$7 for awesome pizza (3 slices and a soda)
$5 car wash

There were three things making this trip expensive, one thing is that we took an off-road vehicle that takes a lot of gas. The forest has a lot of trails that are pretty rough terrain. Having an off-road vehicle makes a big difference on a trip like this one. We would have had to rent something or else suffered with a camping spot close to the main highway and not ideal. But you have to add on a car wash since there’s still a lot of streams to ford out there and the mud gets splashy. (in a fun way)

Second thing is that we generally like to eat well while we’re out there and we were there for an extra day because of the holiday weekend. We tend to get ambitious in the meal planning to make sure we get enough calories for hikes and activity. Therefore we usually get too much food. This time we made a supplemental trip for more beer and soda. But the food was awesome on this trip. Way better than the last time. Irish Stew, barbecued chicken, sauteed zucchini, and baked potatoes.

Third thing is that we tried out a power inverter with an electric chainsaw, but it was pretty much a waste of effort. The inverter we picked up wasn’t able to carry the peak capacity of the chainsaw so it didn’t work out. I think I’m going to have to sell the chainsaw if I can’t return it. But at least I didn’t pay for it. I used the rest of a gift card and spent $5 of my own money. (Boyfriend spent $3 for the oil it takes.)

We don’t really keep track of who has spent what. We do sort of an accounting of who’s spent what over the past week, but nothing really serious as far as going Dutch. It’s too much bother for either one of us.

Too bad it wasn’t as cheap as Tricia’s last camping trip, but you can’t have everything in this world, like flaming marshmallows. (I should convince my boyfriend to make s’mores the next time.)

I bought some gas early this week so I could truck my butt out to the boonies for a corporate conference in the countryside. It was actually pretty great as I got some excellent training for my resume that directly impacts my project. All meals were paid for out there and I was covered for mileage and tolls. I’m about to get back $107 in reimbursement.

Yesterday, I spent $5 on coffee, a bag of chips and a lottery ticket for kicks. ($132 million jackpot. Why not?) My co-worker bought me a hotdog and a Diet Coke as a treat for lunch from Costco. (There’s a running joke in the office about buying one another lunches for losing bets. She was buying someone a hotdog so she said she’d get one for me too. She’s very nice.)

Today, I’ll be buying lunch on my way into the office. Then tonight, I’ll be buying groceries for a camping trip this weekend. If I am lucky, I will spend less than $50 total this week. Maybe beer will make it a few dollars more.

Not too bad this week. I was able to also kick over another $200 to my credit cards. That will be $1050 I threw at them for August.

Time to try something different with spending. Now that I’ve moved to mostly debit and cash for my daily spending on lunch, gas and whatnots, I’m having a hard time tracking spending again. I am going to have to write stuff down once more.

I can tell that most of what I’m buying is lunches out. But I’m not disciplining myself on it. Usually I can eat lunch for less than $6.00, but lately I’ve been lax in my oversight. I’ve had lunch for $9 one day and $7 another.

Part of the problem is dining out with other people and getting what they want to eat. The plethora of options out there is making sort of crazy. I thought I’d have nothing to eat around the industrial park I’m in, but slowly I’ve realized that there are lots of options, but many of them are much more expensive than I’d like. I can’t eat a $6 club sandwich or reuben every day from the delis around the office. Sometimes it’s so little that I end up with a bag of chips, which ends up being a dollar or more extra.

If you haven’t tried writing down what you’re spending, give it a try. I go through this exercise periodically when I’m wondering where the money’s going. It’s worth doing, even if it’s only a week.

Sorry for the dry reports. I’ve got the summertime blahs when it comes to blogging.

I ended up with nothing in my wallet on Friday afternoon. I admit that I went to the supermarket to buy some groceries for lunch on Wednesday and used my debit card. But I also ended up skipping lunch on Thursday and just snacking on stuff I bought the day before. That will make money go further.

Thursday night:
Dinner at Austin Grill $15.

Friday:
Boyfriend bought dinner at Chevy’s for us. No idea what the check was.

Saturday:
Boyfriend bought me a bagel and cream cheese with ice tea for lunch
Dinner at home
Gas for $31 - Filled boyfriend’s car with a half tank since he drove us to an event in the burbs just for my friends and he picked up dinner the night before.
Evening - Metro $2.70 round-trip, free vodka drinks at event in exchange for marketing information

Sunday:
Lunch: Boyfriend bought us bagels and drinks and we ate in the park with the dog $14
Dinner - wasn’t very hungry, ate leftovers

The only bad thing was that Thursday night I was really car sick going to Austin Grill and never ate my dinner. I did a take out box and the food sat at home, uneaten for the rest of the weekend. I picked at it when I was feeling sick on Sunday night just to put something in my stomach. I think the rest of it will be edible on Monday night.

I have $26 left in my wallet today. I bought lunch on Monday for $6.50. Dinner, beverage and lotter ticket for about $8.00. Tuesday was Korean buffet for $7.50. Tuesday night was awesome Cheesecake Factory dinner. FOR FREE. YAY!

One of the South Asian gentlemen at work is getting married. He’s leaving for his home country this week for 5 weeks. It’s exciting.* Because his team lead is a pretty cool guy, he asked us who wanted to go take him out for lunch or dinner. Somehow this morphed into dinner and the thought of covering dinner was making me cringe till I found out that the manager was going to expense it as a team building event.

I have only $26 to make it through three more lunches and one dinner. I already told boyfriend I expected him to thaw out some shrimps in his freezer we bought two weeks ago and make dinner today.

I will likely pull out $100 on Thursday afternoon, but it should carry me through well into next week.

*- After dinner, we all went for a walk over to someone’s apartment to check out the view from the roof and sober up a few fellows. While on the walk, the groom asked me about the neighborhood and what there is to do around there. I think once he saw our co-worker’s building, he was pretty sure this neighborhood is where he and his wife will live when she comes back with him.

Also, we were near the Apple store. Some of the guys wanted to go in and check stuff out. As they were talking I reminded them that we get a discount with our work ID’s. They didn’t believe me and I wasn’t sure if it was only through the online store. Sure enough, we asked the clerk and found out that we get anywhere between 4 and 17% off stuff. The groom went ahead and bought two iPod Shuffles as presents to take back home. I was joking that it was for him and his wife for their long return flight back to the US. But seriously, I nearly screamed when I found out all the IT geeks did not know about the discount we get through work. C’mon people! Use your benefits including corporate discounts!

FWIW, this means that I will kindly wait at the store at 8am and pick up a ticket for a new 3G 8GB iPhone for a co-worker when they are in stock. That way he has until 6pm to come to the store to buy it. Lucky me. I will get a free lunch for a little early morning hassle!

Friday night:
Tickets for 2 to the Making Time show in Philly: $36 (bought on debit earlier)
Drinks for 2 (two cocktails, two beers, water, juice) and tips: $30ish
Tolls: $15ish

Boyfriend paid for my dinner and my share of gas and SUV rental. There were 5 of us and I weaseled out of driving duty, thus forcing us into a rental car, which was $30 per person.

Saturday:
Lunch: Leftovers of Chinese food
Sushi dinner: $33 (on credit because I left my debit card in my other clothes)

Sunday:
Wendy’s: $10.08, lunch for two
Dinner: boyfriend cooked for me

It was a lot more than I expected to spend on Friday night. I really hoped I’d have more money leftover, but that’s what I get for not driving my own car and collecting gas money. le sigh. I have a sedan that will fit 5 people, but for some reason I waffled on driving so it forced us into a situation where we had to rent a car. (Epileptic friend has sold his car, another person is too young to rent, third person is an incompetent driver, leaving only my boyfriend who has a two-seater. Thus, we rented.)

On Sunday we aborted a kayak ride out on the Potomac because it was an hour wait for a double kayak. But that would have been $10 an hour for the double.

I’m left with $57 for the week in cash. That should hold me over till Friday since I have no special plans this week which will cost a lot, but I’m not sure. We are taking someone out for lunch on Wednesday before he leaves for India to get married. I think I can if I really try. I plan on buying gas with debit card, since that is what I usually do. And I also need to buy some buttons for yet another baby sweater.

Went to the drive-in again on Friday night. I bought the tolls and tickets into the show. ($4+$16=$20) Boyfriend bought us a whole 16″ pizza pie, popcorn and drinks. ($25ish) I also bought a drink for the road trip back. ($2) FWIW, lunch on Friday at work was free because of a group presentation.

Saturday I picked up my sewing machine refurb and it was $96. Spendy, but worth it. You can buy a whole new machine for $150, but it will be cheap and yucky. This one is a test refurb on a used machine I bought from a friend for $20 when she moved to Oregon. If I think the work was good, I will take them my precious vintage Singer.

Later there was a trip to the flea market and a $4 ironing board (No rust!) but nothing good to eat for lunch, so I snacked before going to a barbecue. I went to a barbecue for my old boss and bought some birthday cards ($6) and a gift card ($25). I also bought boyfriend take out dinner for $10. (Oh those annoying neighbors had a party with full on amplifiers so he had to bring the dog over and stay overnight. The yummy place we like to eat was closing and he didn’t go to the barbecue with me.) Boyfriend mailed a package for me for ($8).

On Sunday we ate brunch at Bistrot Du Coin which boyfriend picked up. ($30, because I am a pig who had salad and pate de campagne. Boyfriend had an omelette only. No drinks.) There was cool drive in the evening to Crystal City for a Chipotle dinner for $16. Boyfriend bought tasty Coldstone ice cream for $10 while we sat under a nice wisteria arbor and watched a pretty fountain. (It’s a really romantic spot. I highly recommend it for a date. The same neighborhood has Jaleo and Legal Sea Food and some other fancy and not so fancy spots for a variety of budgets.) I also picked up some dog food during the day for his dog for $21. (IAMS fancy stuff.)

There was spending every day and a lot of stress of running around etc. The drive-in showed Wall-E and Batman: The Dark Knight. Both worth seeing. We got a lot done, but maybe not enough.

This weekend was boyfriend’s birthday, but there wasn’t really time to go someplace nice for dinner. We also couldn’t decide what to have, so we’re going to put that off till he comes back from his trip for work.

I pulled out a huge allowance on Saturday morning. More than usual, but I have a few social events coming up. First, I got two rolls of quarters for laundry and dropped off my dry cleaning and got a 20% discount. Then I drove to two different shops to get one of my out of commission sewing machines back into shape. (Not that many places fix them anymore.)

I got gas for 13 cents cheaper per gallon while I was on my errands. I bought lunch for boyfriend and me on Saturday, along with a bottle of wine. ($33. Boyfriend bought a spendy dinner the night before.) After lunch, I hit Target and stocked up on laundry detergent since it was 10 cents an ounce. (But WHY doesn’t Target post unit pricing?! I had to whip out my calculator on my cellphone.) I also bought a few new bathroom items to match the new decor, including a bathmat, squeegee and toilet brush. I put this stuff on my Target card (and I’ve scheduled the outgoing payment already).

I found about $20 dollars in cash in my pockets while I was doing laundry on Saturday afternoon.

We skipped out on a house party on Saturday night, saving ourselves time in the car and gas money. (Plus we heard the next day that the plumbing backed up and people were going outside. Glad we didn’t go!)

Sunday we hit the market. First was lunch for about $25 (split between me and boyfriend). We got a crabcake sandwich and a fresh haddock sandwich with sides and drinks at Eastern Market from the lunch counter. The haddock was expensive, but I have wanted to try it for a while. It’s a $10 sandwich, but it’s an entire deep fried filet. It was moist and juicy inside, and crispy tasty outside with lots of hot sauce in unmarked bottles. I’m glad I got it, but I’m not sure I’ll get it again since it was so expensive. I also bought a little loose sausage meat for 75 cents for a lentil stew later this week, and a brownie ($1.50). Outside, we purchased some corn ($2) and fruit ($4) and headed over to the DC Waterfront for shrimp and clams ($20 total).

I started out Sunday with about $65 and I came back with $23 and some change. Not too bad for the day.

All in all, a good weekend. I finished a knitted baby blanket, washed some clothes, gathered some stuff for eBay and cleaned my apartment a bit from the mess of construction. I have $100 left for the week.

Today I have $24 in my pocket. I’ve been more parsimonious with my cash lately. I just spend less on lunch. At any rate, I have $24 for the next two days. Since lunch will be provided on Friday by my office, and I’m not planning on having dinner out on tonight (maybe a beverage though after the Frugal Duchess book signing).

$24 is more than plenty till Friday. I started out the week with about $25 in my pocket (meaning last Friday when I usually give myself pocket money). I had a bagel/cream cheese for a snack on Saturday and a really delicious Chinese dinner Saturday night with a friend. I paid by debit card and she gave me cash ($18). I took out another $40 at the grocery store on Sunday and stayed home all day to bake bread for dinner on Tuesday. I bought lunch Monday - Wednesday at work but have managed to eat at home or at a friend’s all week. Most weeks, I would have dined out at least three times, and I have. But two times were at the home of a friend. (Cost, 1 loaf of homemade bread!)

There’s half a tank of gas in the car and I usually pay that by debit anyway. Knowing I have a bunch of social events next week, I will probably take out my usual $140, but I wonder how long I can make that last…

Here’s to a lackluster 4th of July. I have a 3-day weekend and will NOT be taking advantage of it.

Most likely I will be cleaning the dust out of my condo and sleeping in a lot.

There might be a fireworks show if I can find a decent spot for viewing. A bike ride perhaps. The Smithsonian Folklife Festival for a day. Maybe even a minor league baseball game and blogmeet. (/me waves *Hi Ted!*)

If my friend is around, I’ll run over to her house to continue a quilt I’ve been making since March.

I have neither time nor money this year for a summer holiday. I went to a wedding earlier in May so I shall work like The Ant all summer. I ain’t no Grasshopper.