These spending diaries are a way for me to be more cognizant of my spending. They’re also a peek into my daily life for those who care.
For those who are new, my style of “spending” is a little convoluted. I have two checking accounts. I keep the majority of my money in the secondary account, transferring $280 a week into the main account. But I charge everything to the card to maximize rewards. As charges accrue, I transfer money out of the main account into the secondary one. Then I make a weekly payment on my credit card.
A tad confusing, perhaps, but it works for me. Anyway, here’s how spending went this week.
Thursday
I woke up with my alarm, but it took both me and Aaron a while to get going. When we did get up, I answered emails, then chatted with him a bit more until he had to leave at 9 a.m.
I hadn’t gotten to sleep until after midnight the previous night, so I was weary but also too alert for a nap. This was going to be fun. And probably filled with junk food. I get carb/sugar cravings when I’m fatigued.
The Banfield plan charge hit my account ($33.95), meaning I had to start a new financial week. The last one only lasted seven days, whereas they normally stretch to nine or 10. Clearly takeout isn’t a cheap habit.
Because I’d been spending so much more, the buffer in my secondary account was pretty low, so I just transferred in $100 (instead of the normal $280) and hoped my check showed up that day.
At 11 a.m. I went to Walgreens for some candy ($8.98) and then got some takeout ($9.34).
I got home, and the mail came. But alas, no check. Sigh.
I lay down for a bit around 1 p.m. and got up about an hour later feeling a bit more human.
I finished up the day, then went to get my beauty service done ($40 including tip). After that, I came home and chilled out until it was time to watch my friend Nalin on Jeopardy. Unfortunately, he didn’t win, but he put up a good fight.
I was bushed, so I started getting ready for bed around 8 p.m. and was in bed before 9 p.m. I fell asleep around 9:30.
Total spent: $92.27
Friday
I got up and had computer trouble where it kept starting up with a black screen. After three tries (plus the two I’d done the night before, ugh), it started up properly… and began upgrades.
These take around half an hour, so it’s maddening when I haven’t even started work yet. I really hate this computer.
Aaron had looked at it a few days prior, and there was plenty of hard drive space available — it’s 1 TB — but this time I checked memory. It was only 4 GB. I run a fair number of programs at any given time (two email programs for work, Excel to keep track of spending and an Internet browser with four or five tabs open) so I guess that would explain the slowness. So after I caught up on emails, I did some searching to find out how I could expand the memory for faster processing.
I didn’t want to get a new PC altogether because my boss paid for this one, and I didn’t want to seem ungrateful. But lord it’s awful. I was hoping more RAM would help.
I checked in with Mom via text to see how she was doing after my grandfather’s passing the day before. Her brother was going to call shortly, so we didn’t talk much. We agreed I’d call the next day since we usually FaceTime on Saturdays.
The HVAC guys had shown up a little after 8 a.m., and their work made a tremendous amount of noise. They had to clean the ducts and that involved a very large vacuum, essentially. Plus one of them walked into the guest house without knocking, despite my mentioning there was a tenant. Sigh.
They were done around 11 a.m. I poked around online and found out that the laptop’s memory capacity was 8 GB, so I could only increase it by 4 GB. But I figured that would still probably result in a noticeable boost.
Memory is apparently very easy to install yourself, but if you do, then you void any warranty the computer has. So I sent an email to my boss asking whether this was still under any warranty, explaining that I seemed to like to run too many programs for the current RAM. I told him if it was still under warranty, I’d pay Best Buy to do it for me.
My check finally came, so I got that deposited.
I basically twiddled my thumbs all day. At 1 p.m. I got an extra large pizza and cinnamon sticks ($29.50). Since I don’t seem able to stop with takeout right now, I figured I’d at least get something I knew would last for a bit.
When work was over, I watched some TV and generally chilled out. My friend Jen didn’t win the Plutus Award she was nominated for. Poo. But she messaged me to let me know that Mom had won the Lifetime Achievement Award category. I texted Mom that, while it was likely the furthest thing from her mind, she’d won.
My boss emailed back that an extra 4 GB probably wouldn’t give it a huge boost — which seems wrong? but he’s the computer expert — so he suggested we do a factory reset and only add back the programs I use most. I told him I’d make a list and get back to him.
Then I went online and priced flash drives because I had a bunch of documents currently on my computer that I want to keep.
Aaron texted around 8 p.m. to say hi. He was cramming for his pilot’s exam on Monday, and I think he needed a short break, hence the text to chat. I started getting ready for bed around 9 p.m. I started trying to fall asleep around 10 p.m. and I was out around probably 11ish.
Total spent: $29.50
Saturday
I woke up around 9:30 a.m. feeling pretty well-rested. I texted Mom that I didn’t want to wake her by calling so to please let me know when she’s up.
I went onto Vanguard and filled out then printed a bunch of forms to get my solo 401(k) plan set up. I decided I’d mail them out later that day.
Then I cleaned the two bathrooms’ and the kitchen sinks, plus wipe down the stovetop. I also dusted and cleaned the litterbox. It was an exciting Saturday.
I worked on my financial update post for the month.
At 1 p.m. I still hadn’t heard from Mom, so I called. She had just seen my text was about to get a couple things done. So we agreed she could call back when she had time.
I watched the most recent This Is Us. Right at the end, she called back, and we FaceTimed for almost two hours. It turns out one of my aunts had flown to New Jersey (sigh). The other one has moderate asthma, so she was smart enough not to fly but… Instead, her brilliant solution was to drive 700 miles to New Jersey. By herself. In a single day.
That had to have stressed out her system — which had to have already been stressed out by grief. New Jersey was seeing a huge spike in cases, so this was less than great.
Afterward, I pretty much just chilled out and watched TV. I called it a night around 10 p.m. but I didn’t fall asleep until some time after 11 p.m.
Total spent: $0
Sunday
I woke up at 10 a.m. One of the first things I did was to try to get the slow shower drain going again. So I got out the plastic drain strip thing. (As an Amazon affiliate, I am compensated for purchases made through my links). It removed a truly disgusting amount of old hair. And got gross black crud all over the shower floor. Ick ick ick.
Unfortunately, the drain was still slow when I went to wash the crud back down the drain. Sigh.
I wrote up Monday’s post, then went back to the shower stall, which had finally drained, to clean the floor of all the crud.=
Aaron hadn’t texted, but that wasn’t surprising since it was the final day before his exam.
The Hulu charge hit my account for $6.46.
I ran out to the grocery store to get a few things. I spent $2 at Dollar Tree and $25.03 at Fry’s. I even got a few salads for around $3 each in the hopes that I might slowly get back to eating a bit more healthily.
After that, I came home and watched TV and generally chilled out til bedtime. I dashed off a quick text to Aaron wishing him good luck for his exam the next day.
I got into bed around 9:30 p.m. and fell asleep around 11 p.m.
Total spent: $33.49
Monday
There were appallingly few emails to deal with when I woke up, so I got through them very quickly.
I started a laundry, so I put $3.50 into the Washer/Dryer fund. It’s almost up to $1,500 now!
Then I ran the Roomba. Part of me thinks I should jump on a Black Friday deal, since the machine isn’t getting any younger. But other than the brush not spinning (even after I clean out matted hair from under it), the thing is still chugging along.
I hadn’t receive an appointment confirmation call from my doctor — usually I receive one automated one two days prior and one real person calling the day before — so I called to confirm my appointment. They said that, yes, I was scheduled.
I left for the appointment at 10 a.m. The doctor was running late, so I didn’t get back til about 11:30. Luckily, only a few emails were waiting. I caught up on those and went to rest for a bit. I felt awful for some reason.
I got up feeling better, but I still hadn’t heard from Aaron. I was a little concerned that maybe this meant he hadn’t passed. But he could also just have had to dive directly into work after the exam.
I finished work still without hearing back. So I sent an “I hope everything is okay?” text around 3:30 p.m. He got back to me not too long afterward that he’d passed. Hooray!
But I was pretty tired and I think he was too, so neither of us suggested meeting that night — though we did agree we should celebrate soon.
Since I was so tired, I only watched TV until about 8 p.m. and then started getting ready for bed. Still took me a while to fall asleep, but I was unconscious around 10 p.m.
Total spent: $3.50
Tuesday
I woke up, got through emails and then stared down the long day ahead of me.
I wrote up a quick post about a giveaway for the next day and then polished my Thursday post, which was just a financial update.
Aaron checked in. Work was crazy — he’d taken a week off to study — and things were going wrong in the system. I told him it sounded like meeting that day wouldn’t work, but he assured me he wanted to see me.
So I just chilled out and waited for the workday to be over. I had some Extrabux about to expire and a 30% off coupon had come in the mail, so I went to CVS and picked up some two boxes of hair color and a three-pack of Blistex for $10.28 with $6.90 in saved savings.
Aaron said he’d be by around 5 p.m., so I hopped in the shower to get ready. The shower reminded me that the drain was still super slow, so I found a place offering a $39 special and called. They said they could come within the next two hours.
I agreed and finished getting ready. Shortly after Aaron showed up, the plumber did too. It was a pretty small clog, which he said meant that buildup had probably narrowed the pipes — common for older ones — and they would recommend a… I think he called it a hydroflush? I said I’d think about it, and he told me if I booked within a week they would probably apply the $39 as a credit toward the $300 total.
Around 7:30 p.m. Aaron wanted to get some food. We were celebrating his passing his exam, so I paid ($22.16). He wanted to get some hard cider, which ended up meaning going to three different stores before finding it. (Are people hoarding cider along with toilet paper?) He bought the cider, since I’d paid for dinner.
We got back to my place, ate, chatted more and then passed out around 11 p.m.
Total spent: $78.34
Wednesday
How was it only Wednesday???
We woke up around 6:30 a.m., but he ended up not leaving til about 8 a.m. I was exhausted — Aaron was apparently determined to sleep all tangled up Tuesday night, which is sweet but kept waking me up — so I answered emails, updated the blog briefly and then lay back down praying for sleep.
But instead I got caught up on my phone for a while, though I eventually did rest for a bit. When I got up I was very hungry, so after I caught up on emails, I got takeout ($9.34).
My friend had purchased the group’s virtual trivia tickets, so I sent him $6 to cover mine. I also took advantage of a free shipping offer from Walgreens (and a $5 off $10+ coupon) and got a couple things for $7.
I killed time the rest of the afternoon answering emails and messaging with friends. Then someone posted a picture of a mask that says “It Goes Over Your Nose” and I found one on Etsy for only $5. I loved it so much I bought one for me. I sent Aaron the link, and he thought it was hilarious. So I bought a second one for him. (Order total $14.50 with shipping and tax.)
I told him to consider it an early Christmas gift — with the proviso that I actually don’t want to exchange gifts. He misunderstood me initially and said yeah we could buy gifts if I wanted to give him some suggestions. But he seemed relieved when I clarified that I actually didn’t want a present. As I told him, we’re keeping things light and besides, neither of us really wants anything. Why not skip the headache of trying to think up a good gift?
At 6 p.m., three friends and I did virtual trivia. The setup is a little strange. It’s on Zoom and the emcee asks all the questions for the round, then puts groups into breakout rooms so we can discuss our answers/guesses, then enter them into an answer sheet we submit.
But normally in trivia, you can discuss your answers/guesses as the questions are asked. Meanwhile, the breakout rooms only give us 10 minutes to debate and submit. So we run a different video chat on a second device so that we can still kibitz the whole time. I imagine most groups are doing the same. There’s a slight lag for the second program, which can get a bit headache-y, but it’s better than having only 10 minutes to answer 10 questions, which usually involves debating at least three where we had different guesses.
We did markedly better than last time, tying with two groups for 7th out of 46. Last time, we were 27th.
I messaged Jen when trivia was over, and we watched some episodes of Designated Survivor with the Teleparty (nee NetflixParty) program. I called it a night around 9:45 p.m. and was asleep around 10:30 p.m.
Total spent: $36.84
Total spent: $273.94
Oof, another high-spend week. The pet plan plus the drain cleaning was a bit more than 1/4 of my weekly outlay. But entirely too much of the rest was takeout and junk food. I’m now (slowly) working toward cutting down on candy/takeout and increasing healthy foods. Hopefully, it helps — both for my waistline and my bank account.
How did everyone else’s week go?
Related reading:
Of sympathy gifts, birthday gifts and grief: A spending diary
Of toiletries, a massage and too much candy: A spending diary
Middle class revolution says
I missed the post where you introduced Aaron… Which post should I read to know the back story?
Middle class revolution recently posted…The Art of Doing Less at Work
Abigail says
Ummm…. I wasn’t sure, actually, so I went back and checked. Looks like Aaron made his debut, so I had to do some digging. Looks like he made his debut in https://ipickuppennies.net/2020/10/of-medications-heavenly-pizza-and-a-new-guy-a-spending-diary/ and is mentioned in spending diaries ever since. He’s been around since early October, and we’re doing pretty well at having fun/companionship but staying casual. So hopefully this will keep working for a while.