I’m noticing an irritating habit over the past two weeks,
the constant litany of ‘I want…’, ‘I need…’ in my internal monologue. I notice
it most when I walk by myself.
I enjoy walking down Cuba
Street here in Wellington and looking at all the brightly coloured shop
displays. Having worked in the fashion industry for years, colour and light and
sound are my life blood and Cuba Street has always been one of my favourite
people watching places of all time.
Now walking this route to work every weekday has become
slightly tortuous. No hot chocolate from Cosmic, no juice from FIX, no stopping
at a café for a sandwich (and custard square). No planning what to wear an
outfit in the window of S’wonderful
or Max, or even Paper Bag Princess.
As a consumer, I am easily influenced. I. Am. Terrible. I see an advert and I’m instantly looking
it up or craving and Oreo or the latest Ford Mondeo. I am trying to change my
thinking so that it’s more ‘I like that colour’, ‘Wow, great lines’ or that
sort of thing instead of a straight out desire to buy.
I have a wedding to go to in a couple of weeks and
desperately want a new dress for the event and I just can’t fit it into my
budget before then. Thinking hard on the subject I realised that I had heaps of
different pieces of fabric and some new patterns I had picked up at Spotlight
not long ago. So this week I will be putting my skills and existing bits and
pieces together and starting something to wear!
And this week I’ll put more effort into reducing my impulse
spending!!
Week 2, Day 1:
I
considered having breakfast, but didn’t have the motivation for it! Took a #coffeeselfie
for @Megapope’s
birthday – except mine was tea of course.
Managed to forget to eat lunch as well! Luckily my flatmate baked a delicious chocolate pie and I had some of that earlier and a peanut slab that a co-worker gave me for doing her a favour.
Managed to forget to eat lunch as well! Luckily my flatmate baked a delicious chocolate pie and I had some of that earlier and a peanut slab that a co-worker gave me for doing her a favour.
Decided I’m going straight home after work instead of to
birthday drinks at Golding’s
so I can eat a proper dinner there and not spend the little money I have left
on beer. I’m planning on spending it on a beer at knitting tomorrow as I feel
like I haven’t been out and socialised for a while.
Total Spend: $0
Week 2, Day 2:
Refreshed the cereal at work, so actually had breakfast.
Lasagne for lunch and some more of the chocolate pie for afternoon tea.
Headed off to knitting at Bin44
after work as I had budgeted enough to buy a beer ($10) and say hi to everyone.
Thoroughly enjoyed the pint of Parrot Dog
Dead Canary and ate half of my friend Ruben’s hot chips (oops).
Total Spend: $10
Week 2, Day 3:
PAYDAY! And bonus, we got out yearly increases which isn’t a
lot but was back pay from 1st July. That was (ever so slightly)
helpful!
I’m going out to dinner tonight with a friend, we’re going
to The Ramen Shop in
Newtown. If you haven’t been you need to. The food is amazing and really
reasonably priced. It gets crowded, but they do take-away as well. Don’t forget
to try their pork buns, like no pork bun you have ever tried… trust me, you’ll
thank me later. Soy and Shogyu broth with pickled shitake mushrooms and extra
24hour cooked pork belly = $15, Mikes
Ompa (One More Pale Ale) at Bebemos
before diner = $10.50.
I’ve also ordered some bits for my fish tank set-up from Pet, I went slightly over my budgeted $25 a
fortnight for this as the piece I wanted was $24.75 and shipping was $4.90 or
free if I spent $39+. As I got my back pay this week I bought a couple of extra
things that I needed and will take the extra out of next fortnight’s budget.
Spent a total of $41.18 on 4 items of which $25 was budgeted = $16.18 extra.
On a good note, I managed to stop myself from buying one of
the Chocolate
Afghan biscuits that a colleague’s daughter sells here at work and those
cookies are A-MAZ-ING!! Proud of myself.
Going home from Ramen tonight to bake cupcakes for tomorrow,
pretty sure I’ll have to taste test at least one of them.
Total Spend: $41.68
Week 2, Day 4:
SPCA Cupcake day
at work today and I spent a while baking last night and made and absolute
disaster zone out of my kitchen. I made The
Ultimate Chocolate Cupcake and by golly, were they ever! I added a homemade
boysenberry jam filling and attempted to pipe my icing (but because I made it
too chocolatey it was too firm and the original icing looked a little like…
well poop.)
I ended up using the old fashioned knife and hot water to smear icing on the cakes, piling it up roughly and covering it in sprinkles. They were the best chocolate cupcakes I’ve ever tasted, let alone made even if they looked a little rough! I bought a couple of cupcakes to support the cause = $8.
I ended up using the old fashioned knife and hot water to smear icing on the cakes, piling it up roughly and covering it in sprinkles. They were the best chocolate cupcakes I’ve ever tasted, let alone made even if they looked a little rough! I bought a couple of cupcakes to support the cause = $8.
Today is also our bi-monthly Admin Team get together, which
I arranged this time so I have to go. At least we’re having it at The Pub so it is both close to work and
inexpensive – they have a $10 lunch menu so between a Thai Beef Salad and a
raspberry lemonade I spent $13.50
Feeling like my spending is getting a little advanced so
will try to be good over the weekend… pretty sure my daily average is going to
creep up quite a bit on last week! I’m setting myself an extras budget of $25
maximum for the weekend (including Friday) and hoping I can stick to it.
Total Spend: $21.50
Week 2, Day 5:
Today I have eaten chocolate pie and drunk tea. I’m still
coughing, like I have been for the last 5 and a half weeks, so I’m going to the
doctor this afternoon. While this is an unexpected expense of $61 plus $5 for
the prescription, because it is health related I won’t be including it in the
spend for today.
I am really looking forward to my fortnightly massage today,
this is at work and $20 for 20 minutes. Massage is about the only thing that
helps the muscle spasms that cause my migraines so this is an essential health expense
for me as well.
Let’s see if I can get through the rest of today spend free!
Total Spend: $0
Week 2, Day 6:
Well, the doctor decided I probably have Whooping
Cough and prescribed me anti-biotics, with a follow up of prednisone if
they don’t help so fingers crossed for me please!
Friday went well, but on Saturday although I managed to stop
myself buying more things for my fish tank at the Animates sale, we did decide to have an
All Blacks get together at a friends and as she and I were hosting we went to
the supermarket and put together a snacks platter and all the ingredients for
dinner.
I made chicken burgers, free-range chicken thighs marinated
in thyme and olive oil, homemade red onion jam, chipotle mayo, cherry tomatoes,
lettuce, brie and grilled pineapple, with homemade onion rings. It was delicious,
not cheap, but delicious = $28.38 for food + $36 for beer (Spring & Fern Pilsner and IPA for
my friend and a few cans of Beer by
Garage Project of which I still have some left for drinking through the
week instead of buying more) + $10 towards my friends taxi home seeing as she
came to us.
Total Spend: $74.38
(ouch!)
Week 2, Day 7:
Quiet day, originally we were going to head to the Zoo, however the weather was miserable
and the friend I was hanging out with wasn’t feeling well so I took her dogs
for a walk on the beach (first time walking them by myself and one of them got
into a dog fight on the beach off-lead #sigh. Only slightly injured).
Made lunch from leftovers from dinner last night – a chicken
and onion soup with brie on toasted bread – delicious!
Total Spend: $0
Week 2
Total spend: $147.56 – an average of $21.08 per day!
