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Archive for April, 2013

Bringing it back in...

April 19th, 2013 at 04:21 pm

OK...now that we've had our 'a-HA' moment, let's figure out where the heck all that money is going and more importantly, how to make it stop.

I said before, I really thought we were doing well on cutting this back. Over the past year, we have NOT been eating out as much, etc. I "usually" bring my lunch to work, and he is much better about doing that than I am. I'm back in school now and rarely do a "happy hour" anymore. He almost never does them. Once every several months.

Still, going over the past month or so, it's easy to see where it's all going:
- I said I "usually" bring my lunch to work. I still go out for lunch 1-2 times per week. Sometimes 3. I would say $7-$10 each time.
- He might go once per week, on Fridays since he's off work. Usually fast food, $5-$7
- Then, we might eat out 4 times on a weekend. Not every weekend, but even 4 times in one weekend in a month is a couple hundred dollars, then one or two times the other weekends.
- We've been eating out Friday or Saturday nights. $50-$75, depending on where we go.
- I stop to see my best friend after school on Saturdays. She's a bartender, so I go see her at her bar. This is usually $25. Sometimes if I'm in a hurry, it might be $15.
- If my significant other meets me at my friend's bar, $50 or sometimes more. We usually eat.
- We sometimes go out for breakfast Sunday mornings, then go grocery shopping. Sometimes, depending on the time, we might stop somewhere for lunch or drinks in the afternoon.
- If the UFC fights are on PPV, we go to a bar to watch. There's no cover charge, but we spend probably $60 for food and drinks. This is once or twice a month I think. At least once.
- Booze at home. There's no schedule here, we go in phases. I might not drink all week one week, then the next week I might have one or two almost every night. I don't drink real expensive stuff, but not cheap either. Lately I've been drinking ciders (like Angry Orchard or Woodchuck). He drinks beer, usually craft beer (and when I'm drinking beer, I drink craft beer also) so more expensive than usual domestic. Lately it's been Tecate though.

So, yeah. It adds up quick when I lay it all out that way.

We're trying to figure out how to best limit this spending: by event or by dollar amount? So...eat out one time a weekendend, period. So if it's UFC, that's it. If it's breakfast, that's it.

Or dollar amount. We get $50 per weekend to eat out. Of course, for us, this is about one time lunch or dinner.

Then a set dollar amount on alcohol at home? I'll probably post this to the forum.

What a wake-up call...

April 18th, 2013 at 11:46 pm

We spend up to $700 per month on booze and eating out. HOLY SHOCK TO THE SYSTEM! How did I not realize this??

So, significant other and I enjoy (and apparently we REALLY enjoy...) drinking and eating out. I really thought we were doing well on cutting this back over the last year or so. I don't even want to know what we WERE spending, holy moley!

We recently opened new bank accounts and got reward credit cards, on which we've been putting all gas, groceries, eating out, etc. to pay off every month. This is part of our plan to control our spending and "really see" what we spend money on, and how much.

Anyway, he was talking to his coworkers about whatever, and budgeting came up. This made him start calculating in his head...and he came up with about $700 per month. I said, NO WAY! Then I looked at our first credit card statements, and in a month, we're not quite at $700, but we are pretty darn close. And it's been a "slow month" for us. I am ashamed to admit that I really had no idea it was that much!

Mind you, this is BOOZE and EATING OUT ONLY! Stops at the liquor store, happy hours, lunch and/or dinner on the weekends, going out for breakfast.

Well, gee. Maybe that's why I can't manage to put more money in savings, or pay down the other credit accounts faster, or why everything is an emergency when there's an emergency. Geez.

Well, welcome to reality! I am so mad at us! We had a good long discussion last night though. This is going to stop.