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Spendy weekend

October 7th, 2012 at 07:21 am

Oh my. I got my $80 spending money on Friday and right now I've got $5 left to spend. Where did it all go?

$20 went into my theater-tickets fund.

I went to a show with NT last night; though I'd paid for my tickets ages ago, I spent $7 on coat check and $25.50 on food and drink. Oh and bought a drink for our friend who drove, $6. So $38.50 total.

$3 for wine for home. We had a $30 Groupon-type certificate we'd bought a week or two ago, but spent $39 (part of it was buying a gift bottle for our friends throwing a party tonight). So $3 for my share of the overage.

$20 for my share of the babysitter tonight. We also got a carshare to go to this party, but luckily we have a carshare budget item so it didn't come out of our spending money.

Wow, I've spent $81.50! So I must have had a bit of money left over from last week. (There were some complicated Amazon refunds and other issues that made it a bit hard to tell until I got everything sorted out.)

Then at the party, I promised I'd have lunch with a friend Monday for his birthday. (I have the day sort-of off; office is closed though I will need to keep my work smartphone on me to monitor emails, since our biggest client doesn't have Columbus Day off.) And it's my turn to go to Tuesday trivia.

So, I have a feeling I'm going to go over $5 and have to pull from next week's spending money. But knowing that will keep me from spending too much either Monday or Tuesday. This same friend is inviting us for dinner at a restaurant Saturday for his birthday, so I need to make sure I have money next week for that.

Anyway, groceries this weekend were much better news. We spent $75 for the week, when usually we have trouble staying under $100! We needed to cut down because we have to get a lot of diapers this week, and because we'd spent more last week, stocking up at the Asian grocery store and taking advantage of deals on some staples.

We should have just enough for diapers and wipes, and as long as we don't need anything else during the week we won't have to dip into the 15th-30th grocery/household money.

Last week we seemed to have a lot of time- and labor-intensive meals. Or maybe it's just being in the most challenging period of having a 2.5-year-old and a 6-month-old, and we're all exhausted. Either way, this week we went for the simplest options we could think of, while still using all our CSA veggies. Here's our menu starting with Friday night:

Friday
Spaghetti & tomato sauce

Saturday lunch
bok choy yakisoba

Saturday dinner
Veggie burgers, leftover "gunsmoke" slaw

Sunday lunch
Italian style spagetti squash & sauteed chard
http://www.vegetariantimes.com/recipe/italian-style-spaghetti-squash/

Sunday dinner
Tofu turkey, gravy, cauliflower, turnips, cranberry sauce

Monday
Grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup

Tuesday
Mexican chikn seitan/corn/bean rice bowl & salad

Wednesday
Spaghetti w/ broccoli, garlic & lime

Thursday
Pancakes & maple-"bacon" celeriac & apples

2 Responses to “Spendy weekend”

  1. Tightwad Kitty Says:
    1349599861


    Enjoy your dinner out on Monday. I have always average out on spending money over the year so long as I have some money left at the end of that week or pay period. I also keep a float so that I have some money for these kinds of nights out.

    I have just put another vegetarian recipe on my blog tonight.

  2. ceejay74 Says:
    1349621807

    Thanks Kitty! My spending money tends to average out, too, with summer draining my resources and causing me to dip ahead a bit, and then winter being less social and with fewer activities, making it easier to make up my summer shortfall. (Buying Xmas gifts for extended family, which we don't have a budget item for, does take a bit of planning, but other than that winter tends to be fairly cheap.) This fall has been unusually social so far, so it's taking longer for my spending money equilibrium to return.

    Ugh, as I was writing this I remembered, got to get a bottle of wine for a friend who's hosting me for dinner this week, and that I'm having dinner out with another friend in a week or two. And the tire on my bike needs fixing. Got to REALLY plan my spending money carefully so I'm not in debt to my budget for months!

    Love the look of that recipe! NT and I love curry but AS doesn't like it, so NT tends to make curries and divvy it into batches for him and me to take for work lunches.

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