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All Posts, Finances & Retirement

On a Budget

IMG_3270I spend freely: glasses of wine, books from Amazon, donations, face products from Sephora, groceries from Safeway, flavored teas, furniture, lighting.  I buy rounds of drinks.  I try the newest restaurants in the city.  Everything gets charged to my credit card and I simply pay it.  I don’t scrutinize the bill.  I look for items over a hundred dollars as a double-check, but otherwise, I’m just not careful.

Well, those days are over.  I’ve run the paycheck calculations.  I now automatically deduct money from each paycheck into a savings account and the rest is now my budget.  Kudos to Catherine because I’ve gone through my monthly credit card statements and they’ve all been within my budget. Hallelujah.  So I don’t really have much to worry about except I’ve got to get my spending under control.

Starting a few days ago, I started writing down every single expense.  I know this may sound like a lot to many of you, but it works for my lifestyle and wage: my budget is $100 a day.  Now, of course, I’m not going to spend $100 every single day.  But Monday, we had date night.  Dean paid the bill and that was almost $100.  Thursday we went out for drinks.  Luckily, Dean paid for that, too.  But Friday, I wrote down $7 for lunch and $43 for the half marathon I registered for.  That was already $50 for the day and I hadn’t gone to happy hour yet.  Thank God Daniel took care of the bill.  Then today, I absolutely had to have this silk print dress I’ve been eyeing at American Rag.  I willed myself to walk away from the store a week ago, but came back today.  I had to have it. That was $250 right there.  Yeah, as much as my wedding dress!

So here I am on a Saturday night, already used up my budget for the day and thinking of how I can possibly not drink when I hit the bars tonight.  Sigh!

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01.09.10

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Welcome to my site, derived from an advice column I wrote while getting my MBA. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. I give helpful, opinionated advice based on my own experience and from the expertise of my extensive network. For more, click here.

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