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Jan. 1st, 2007 07:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebToday we had New Year's brunch at a restaurant I will not name. When we arrived there was one other table of customers, one of whom had recently learned how to scream in a very loud and high-pitched way. You'd think evolution would not support such a behavior because of all the choking it would inspire.
We actually asked our waiter if they had just arrived or were about to leave. He said they were about to leave with a look on his face that said to me that he deeply, sincerely hoped they were about to leave. They did leave about ten minutes later.
The next group to arrive was a family I couldn't help noticing because it included three different races. but then I decided it was not a family after all but two residents of some sort of institution and their two caretakers. I decided that because although the men were very loving and protective and helpful, one of the women was angry, loud, and actually hit the man's hand several times. I decided her brain must be broken.
One other group arrived, made up of two men I did not notice.
All the employees were great, but we're not returning.
**
I have now written down my "fun" purchase for a full month. I had budgeted $412 and I spent $560. Today was the day to evaluate this spending. I learned the following things about my bad spending:
* always check the price of things at Target. It's very easy because they have those scanners right in the aisles. But I bought two things I probably would not have bought had I known the price I would be paying.
* don't pay to play ultimate. I think we'd enjoy regular pick-up games somewhere better. We need to find some and try them out later.
* don't buy a big bag of something at Upper Crust, no matter how cheap it is, unless I love it. I never ate most of the apple muffins I got there this month.
I feel that everything else I bought last month was a good buy, but if I had already learned the above lessons, I would still have gone well over my budget. So I can think of two possible conclusions. 1) I can continue buying the kinds of things I'm buying, but not so many of them or 2) I need to increase my fun budget.
Like Americans everywhere,
In grad school I used to live on $100/month for fun. According to this inflation calculator, $100 in 1985 is equivalent to $177.47 in 2005 (the latest year for which data are available). So I have already increased my budget both to account for inflation and to account for no longer being poor.
But when I try to pick what I should have cut (or postponed) to stay within my budget, it's not so easy. For example, a lot of my purchases were time-sensitive: seeing a movie in a theater because Netflix movies were so slow in arriving (and one is now presumed lost), paying for winter ultimate league and winter ballroom dance workshops, buying presents. Actually, the cost of these seasonal things add up to just about my entire monthly budget by themselves.
Maybe I should pay more attention to expensive things that are seasonal. Let's look over the past of couple of years and see what I can find.
* February - ballroom dance club membership fees ($100); gym dues ($162)
* March - SXSW movie festival tickets ($58 each)
* April - income tax
* June - Home tours ($20 or so each)
* July - R.'s birthday
* September - AECT membership ($95)
* December - Christmas
Nope, none of that is really that crazy except for February. But maybe I should subtract $75 from my budget for seasonal items and pretend $337 is my real monthly budget, the same way I have a whole separate budget for long-term fun (vacations, expensive toys, etc.).
Under this plan, my spending was all fine this month but I should have spent less in other months to be prepared for Christmas. I get to have my cake and eat it too. Of course, I have overspent every month for a while, so this may all be wishful thinking.
We'll see.
We actually asked our waiter if they had just arrived or were about to leave. He said they were about to leave with a look on his face that said to me that he deeply, sincerely hoped they were about to leave. They did leave about ten minutes later.
The next group to arrive was a family I couldn't help noticing because it included three different races. but then I decided it was not a family after all but two residents of some sort of institution and their two caretakers. I decided that because although the men were very loving and protective and helpful, one of the women was angry, loud, and actually hit the man's hand several times. I decided her brain must be broken.
One other group arrived, made up of two men I did not notice.
All the employees were great, but we're not returning.
**
I have now written down my "fun" purchase for a full month. I had budgeted $412 and I spent $560. Today was the day to evaluate this spending. I learned the following things about my bad spending:
* always check the price of things at Target. It's very easy because they have those scanners right in the aisles. But I bought two things I probably would not have bought had I known the price I would be paying.
* don't pay to play ultimate. I think we'd enjoy regular pick-up games somewhere better. We need to find some and try them out later.
* don't buy a big bag of something at Upper Crust, no matter how cheap it is, unless I love it. I never ate most of the apple muffins I got there this month.
I feel that everything else I bought last month was a good buy, but if I had already learned the above lessons, I would still have gone well over my budget. So I can think of two possible conclusions. 1) I can continue buying the kinds of things I'm buying, but not so many of them or 2) I need to increase my fun budget.
Like Americans everywhere,
In grad school I used to live on $100/month for fun. According to this inflation calculator, $100 in 1985 is equivalent to $177.47 in 2005 (the latest year for which data are available). So I have already increased my budget both to account for inflation and to account for no longer being poor.
But when I try to pick what I should have cut (or postponed) to stay within my budget, it's not so easy. For example, a lot of my purchases were time-sensitive: seeing a movie in a theater because Netflix movies were so slow in arriving (and one is now presumed lost), paying for winter ultimate league and winter ballroom dance workshops, buying presents. Actually, the cost of these seasonal things add up to just about my entire monthly budget by themselves.
Maybe I should pay more attention to expensive things that are seasonal. Let's look over the past of couple of years and see what I can find.
* February - ballroom dance club membership fees ($100); gym dues ($162)
* March - SXSW movie festival tickets ($58 each)
* April - income tax
* June - Home tours ($20 or so each)
* July - R.'s birthday
* September - AECT membership ($95)
* December - Christmas
Nope, none of that is really that crazy except for February. But maybe I should subtract $75 from my budget for seasonal items and pretend $337 is my real monthly budget, the same way I have a whole separate budget for long-term fun (vacations, expensive toys, etc.).
Under this plan, my spending was all fine this month but I should have spent less in other months to be prepared for Christmas. I get to have my cake and eat it too. Of course, I have overspent every month for a while, so this may all be wishful thinking.
We'll see.