The first splurge I got last week but only got to try out recently, because I didn't want to distract AS from her grad school final project. It was Rock Band for Wii! $180--yowch. I'd been steadily accumulating leftover spending money in my sock drawer, but this purchase ate about two-thirds of that savings. Well, I was saving it for something fun, and what a game! You get a "drum set," drumsticks, microphone, guitar/bass, and a whole mess of cheezy and classic songs. We've been loving it so far.

OK, so Thursday night as I was eating a DELICIOUS new meal we'd come up with (marinated portobellos, pan-fried and then broiled; lemon-butter broccoli; and wild rice/white rice pilaf with onions, garlic, dried herbs and fresh thyme--let me know if you want any recipes BTW), my upper left back tooth started hurting. It got steadily worse that night and was throbbing like crazy the next morning. I called my dentists but they don't work on Fri-Sat-Sun. I'm scared of other dentists so I decided to wait it out.

We were having a party at our house Friday night, Saturday we were going to go up to the pool, and Sunday was the Twin Cities GLBT Pride parade/festival. Plus one of our friends was coming from out of town for Pride.

The party wasn't too bad; I explained my problem to people as they came in so they wouldn't think I was slurring from early drunkenness. I was able to taste all the delicious foods we made (homemade breadsticks with homemade marinara dip, trifle, stuffed red potato skins) and bought (matchstick potatoes, raspberry-mustard pretzel dip) if I chewed really, really cautiously on the right side of my mouth. My only drinking during the night was a periodic swish of whiskey over my tooth to help dull the pain.

Saturday it was just as bad, if not worse. AS looked on the Internet and found a dentist open on Saturdays and called to see if they could fit me in. She insisted I go, and both she and NT said they'd chip in their spending money for the bill. (Awww!) So I went and was reminded why I don't like most dentists. It's just hard for people to make you feel really comfortable. Plus this guy, when he couldn't figure out what was wrong, offered to file my teeth down in case it was a clenching problem. I politely declined! He did prescribe penicillin in case it was an infection. The charge was $70, but I noticed something that said there was a 5% discount if you paid in cash, so I asked about it. She had forgotten to take that off! $66.50, and she knocked it down to $66 because I didn't have the exact amount and she didn't have change. She said they'd reimburse if my insurance paid part of it, but we'll see if they bother to follow up. Not sure any of it's covered anyway. NT, AS and I split the cost three ways from our spending money. The prescription cost $10, which I took from our medical category in the budget (getting low, but there was enough for that at least).

Then came my other big splurge. I've been wanting a really great blender for years. Basically it seems you can get an OK blender for pretty cheap ($30-$100), but a really great one's gonna cost you. With our raw-foods cleanse coming up, we could really use one, because we're going to want to juice greens and make smoothies, and a Vitamix can apparently do both, really well.

So again, the three of us pooled together our spending money, pulled $100 from our farm-share savings, $18 from home improvement, and came up with the $429 for a refurbished Vitamix direct from the company, with 7-year warranty.

I'm excited, but I'm down to a few bucks of spending money, which hasn't been the case for a long time. I just have to do without little extras til Friday, which usually isn't that hard anyway.

Pride was fun at first; we watched the parade and hung out with friends. I only spent about $5 of my dwindling money on drinks. Then AS twisted her ankle coming downstairs. Probably due to that and my still-throbbing tooth (and grad-school stress, and alcohol), we had a spat and headed home. I'm sad we didn't get to see our out-of-town friend more, but he usually comes to town twice a year or more, so it'll be OK. (Oh yeah, and we made up, so that's OK too. )

Today I managed to get an appointment with my dentists, the ones I'm not scared of. They confirmed there is nothing noticeably wrong with my tooth and decided to numb me and give that tooth a good scraping and cleaning, because chances are a small particle of food caused the swelling and infection. They said the cleaning plus the penicillin should clear it up. I hope so! I don't know how much this will cost me (they estimated $60), but I do have a small ($75) emergency fund that will cover it if I don't have any other extra money when the bill comes.

Not a great weekend overall, but we have the blender to look forward to! Plus, even though we're low on spending money, I am proud to say that none of the above, not the splurges or the medical emergencies, will be going on credit cards. What would have been second nature for us before is now a thing of the past!!!

So here I am on Monday, tender-gummed, chagrined but excited about our two luxury purchases, and looking forward to the next couple days when some bills hit and I can show some progress on my debt paying.