Priorities?

While I was talking to Pat the other day, I talked about WHY I was trying to only spend 74.65

This is what we said:

me: and I do want to see if I can actually stick to this amount.... because I think it's so easy these days to spend money without thinking about it effortlessly

Patrick: yeah, I understand -same with me and Netflix [We had been talking about my eMusic account--which I still haven't cancelled]

me: the money I spend hasn't even been earned with that much hard work. Not compared to the labor behind the goods I purchase.... it seems like an imbalance

Patrick: but I still love the convenience of it and don't want to give it up...but it's just another expense I should know better than to have

me: maybe I'm fighting against convenience? Or the temptation of it?

I don't know...

Patrick: maybe a bit of both...complacency and expense

me: yes, probably that and apathy. Both towards the goods (which are often seen as temporary/disposable---I've NEVER been to a cobbler, or used a repairman for an appliance) and the long chain of people who are involved with (and exploited while) making them.


It dawned on me that a big reason why I'm trying to do this is because of the whole concept of consumerism. So now I'm wondering if I should alter the way I'm doing this. Most things that we buy we treat as disposable--we don't show an acknowledgement of how much work has gone into it. In fact, out of a range of options, we'll often buy the one that took the least amount of effort. We don't think about the impact on the environment or the people who have made it. I want to avoid this and try to be more aware when buying things.

However, times when you are directly paying the producer (a gig, homemade clothes, art, crafts, etc) don't really fit into that. Actually, I suppose that isn't true. Arts and crafts and clothes still require materials that come from the same long chain of producers (unless it's from some sheep farmer who dies and spins and weaves their own wool for clothes. . . . nothing I own falls into that category) So gigs. I directly pay the person, I don't get a tangible item to take for granted. SO should those be exempt? Would transportation fall into the same category?

Mac said I'm just trying to justify what I spend money on. Robin said "you not counting going to gigs would be like me saying that I'm not going to count buying clothes". I'd like to think that isn't the case, but. . . .

Any thoughts?

I'm ok

Robin has accused me recently of spending too much money. She bragged about the fact that she’s been able to spend nothing during HER “buy nothing month”. I think I’ve done pretty well considering what I’ve done in the past month and a half.

I’ve been to three different art exhibitions, been to see Ghostbusters at the movie theatre, and saw some archived footage of a film. I went to a play, and have been to at least 5 gigs, two of which weren’t in Southampton. I’ve met up with friends and had them over for dinner, and even been out to eat three times--once a couchsurfer paid, once it was my friend Dave (Dave and I are taking turns on who covers lunch—I made a Greek ‘feast’ last week), and once I had to pay (which is part of the reason I went so far over).

All in all, I think I’ve done pretty well.

Robin also has the added advantage of a car. She is counting her gas as “essential”, whereas any transportation I use, apart from my feet, I’m considering a luxury. In reality, it is. I don’t need to take a bus or a train. Apart from going to work or the grocery store (both of which I walk to), I don’t need to go anywhere.

As for my phone, I’ve figured out a solution—it’s already in my “bills” budget, so I’ve accounted for the £10 already. If I want, I could take it out of the budget and put it into my “spending money”. . . . If I do that, I should probably also take out Mac’s mobile money. Since he spends about £30 a month and I’m spending £5, that would give me more spending money and work in my favour. BUT, I’d already settled on trying to “live” off of the £74.65, so I think I should just leave things as they are, and not count my O2 bill as part of my “spending money”. That makes sense, right?

. . . .

I’ve also managed not to spend any money since my Greek food purchases last Friday (although it’s meant skipping a couple of gigs) so I’ll have enough to go to Reading to Jim’s birthday. I have managed to finagle a present out of thin air, so that won’t cost me either…. And then I just need to NOT SPEND until November 10th!

One week down....

I'm doing pretty badly. Well, REALLY badly. Four days into my second month, and I'd already spent 2/3 of my money!

I started my new month on Saturday. I got money out of the ATM on the way to Holbury to Mac's niece's birthday party. It was a costume party, but luckily no one had told me, so I wasn't expected to turn up as a princess. There was an 8 year old flamenco dancer, which was pretty cool. We took the ferry for £4.50 round trip. Stupidly, though, we didn't leave ourselves enough time to walk to the fire station, which is a little over two miles away. It's not an amazing walk, because it's on a busy road the whole time, but it was a beautiful day. Since we were in Hythe (imagine a picturesque sleepy town, but then realise that it has lots of crappy stores to keep the sleepy town running), I wanted to stop off at the Hythe Wool Shop to buy some yarn. . . .

That was my first downfall. I've just learned how to knit, and Mac's been bugging me already to make him a sweater. I have tried to explain that it's going to be a LONG time before I can make a sweater, but I bought some really nice chunky brown 100% wool yarn to make him a scarf. 4 skeins. Plus some tapestry wool so I can try making some of the designs that I found in this book. And it all came to £13.10. AUGH! By now I've finished the scarf (my first knitting project EVER!) and Mac had better wear it all the time. I've yet to use the crewel wool.... I don't even know if it's the right stuff! Crafts are my other big temptation. I don't know if I can avoid that as well as food.....

So then we took the bus. We walked for a bit first because the next bus wasn't for a good 20 minutes. We ended up taking the bus for about 1 1/2 miles. . . . . . and it was £4.20 for a return ticket PER PERSON. I should have just gotten back off the bus and started walking again. That means for the two of us to get to Holbury it was £17.40.. . . . . . . at our most recent CouchSurfing meeting it was all international people--not a Brit in sight, so we complained about a lot of British stuff. Public transportation was high on their list. I'm pretty happy that it exists at all, having lived in the US most of my life.... but it is pretty freaking expensive. I should still count myself lucky I don't have a car. Gas prices have been going down and it's about $6.60 a gallon.

That means within the FIRST day of my new month, I'd spent £21.80....... not a good start.

We went up to London on Tuesday, which cost £18.50 for the ticket (my young person's rail card will expire in December and I'm now too old to get a new one and I think it will make me cry--why do I have to get old AND pay more money???) I forgot to get a travelcard added to it, so that was another £5.20. Stupid public transportation that allows me to go places........ Entrance to the gig itself was £7, but WELL worth it. We saw Maps & Atlases who were amazing. I drove Mac out to Rochester NY to see them the day after our wedding--plus it was his first "American road trip". I did realise that I think the cost of our combined train tickets was as much as I'd paid in gas to drive the 760 miles (distance there and back) to see them in the States.

In London I also bought two pieces of baklava because there was a shop two doors down that had a WHOLE COUNTER (!!!!!!) with different kinds of Turkish/Lebanese/Greek/wherever pastries. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..... wherever pastries.....

So I'm down to something ridiculous like £18.20 . . . . . for the rest of the month. Dinner parties and free gigs that I can walk to, here I come!

My first month in numbers

Right. So here’s the breakdown. At the point where I went food-crazy and started buying all sorts of stuff, I wasn’t actually over by that point!! If only I’d kept better track, I could have known!

Transport has DEFINITELY been my biggest expense. Stupid trains and buses. At least I don’t have a car.

11 September

• Train to Bournemouth £6.75
• Entrance to Club Anemone £5.00
• Birthday card for Anemone £0.60

15 September

• Soup £0.35
• Twix £0.45

17 September

• Crumpets & tea £0.83
• Soup £0.35

19 September

• Vanilla yogurt drink £0.83
• Art! by Andy Bever £5.00

20 September

• CONTROVERSIAL bread £1.40
  
• CONTROVERSIAL feta £2.80

21 September Train to Sway to see art £3.85

24 September Rice Krispie treat (!!!) £0.40

26 September

• Falafel and chips before a gig £4.60
• bus to more art £1.50

30 September Iron (essential?) £8.48

2 October Crumpet £0.43

3 October

• Gifts for Sam & baby £17.00
• Gifts for Katey (split) £5.50
• Cheesy chips after a gig £1.50

4 October

• Apple turnover before the all-dayer £0.70
• Pizza at lunch before all-dayer (split it) £1.80
• Tea at alldayer (it was kinda cold out) £1.50
• Dinner at Wendy’s surprise party £19.50
  

______

£97.02

£22.37 OVER!!!

That's pretty rubbish. So a lot was on food, which I'm going to stop doing. Promise. And a LOT was on transportation. Plus, I didn't realise how much I spent around gigs--not on entrance, but on just being tempted while I'm out. Thanks goodness I don't drink! That would be disastrous.

Right. So THIS month, I need to not fail. At the very least, not fail so badly.

Stupid Megan.

So I failed.... but how to continue?

I was wondering how I should count the months. If I overspend one month (like this one), should I then take it out of the next month? Or, since my challenge is to spend less than £74.65 a month, should I just start each month fresh?

I think I should probably start each month fresh. Mostly because, if I count this month’s overflow, along with a mobile top-up of £10, AND the theatre/gigs I want to see this month, I will run out of money... and that’s without buying any cups of tea or crumpets. But maybe that’s the wrong attitude. I’m supposed to be reducing my spending, so starting over every month seems like admitting defeat. Of course, then I guess I’m on a yearly challenge rather than a monthly. I’m going to be tracking to see how many months I can succeed, and by how much I’m over/under. I guess that means I can start fresh, but still have it over my head in a sense.

It doesn’t help that our toaster sparked today. Toast is an essential, I think, because it’s groceries. So then a toaster, which makes toast, must also be an essential.

...Sigh...

I failed.

This is highly annoying, considering that I only had a week to go. But I failed. First, my friend Sam went into labour on Friday (so she couldn't hang out with me like we planned) so I decided I would get a couple baby books and a book for her. Then we got Mac's niece two Roald Dahl books for her birthday. That already put me over the amount that I had left. So then I kinda went crazy and spent money on cheesy chips that night...and an apple turnover yesterday afternoon... and a cup of tea... and a pizza. It was ridiculous. So then last night we went to Mac's mum's surprise 50th birthday party.... that came to £31.50 for the two of us--and I was the bulk of that because I also got a dessert and pot of tea. GRRRRRR....

This is on top of the fact that I realised that my mobile is not a necessity, so that should probably be counted as part of my £74.65. I only spend £10 every month and a half on my phone because I get free texts when I "top up". Of course, then I have to wonder about things like LoveFilm (the British Netflix equivalent) and our internet. I'm inclined to think that the internet is completely essential. I NEED it. But, deep down, I know that's not true.

It does seem like I've already spent the bulk of next month's as well.

Maybe I CAN'T live on £74.65.

Where my money has gone...

... I wish I knew!

That's not true. I do know where it's gone... but there isn't much left! The good news is that I started on a Friday, so I won't have a whole weekend to go through at the end of this. That might just about kill me.

I've had to pass up seeing Seasick Steve, but seeing as it's 17.50, I don't mind too much. It seems odd that it costs so much to see a guy who sings mostly about how he was a hobo who rode on freight trains.

Alright. So within the last two weeks I've seen two art exhibitions, watched Control, went to a couple gigs, bought a work of art, and had friends over for dinner a couple times. Not bad.

Money wise, here's what I spent.

My boss, being a bit scatterbrained, asked us all to a "team breakfast" and then paid and sat down before we all went through. So I had to pay for my two crumpets (hee hee--crumpets!) and tea. That day I bought more soup to fit in again. Sigh.... peer pressure....

When I went out to a gig that Friday (It was yesyesnonoyes's 1st birthday!!) and didn't spend anything. The bartender took pity on me when I appeared crestfallen after he told me they weren't serving tea in the evening, so he made me a free cuppa (hee hee--cuppa!). I got in on the guest list, so that was free. But I caved in when I went to ASDA to buy groceries and saw a delicious yogurt drink. Stupid food! I also spent five pounds on a small drawing by a local artist. It's a cute fat weird creature and says Horaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!" Mac bought one that is similar, but has a hungover 5 o'clock shadow and says "Gin."

At the market that weekend (which is mostly filled with CRAP--it is NOT a farmer's market, sadly) I bought nice Polish willage bread (maybe that's Polish for village?) but Mac said that wasn't an essential, so I've charged myself the difference. Should fancy bread be considered groceries? We also bought really nice feta. It was amazing melt-in-your-mouth cheese. But, again, not essential. Does this mean I should be drawing the line at things when I'm at the supermarket?

We visited the Art Vaults, which is a free series of contemporary art installations in medieval vaults, that weekend with Mac's niece, brother, and nephew. FREE! A really nice day out.



It's bedtime, so I'm going to go and finish this another day. Plus this is long and boring. I need to find a way to make my tale of spending money more interesting. Maybe I just need to be a better writer. Hmmmmm...