Posted by Forest on November 6, 2008
I love the Fall and I had a lot of fun in October. Fortunately, all that fun cost me less than all the fun I had in September. Let’s take a look at the breakdown of my October spending in a few major categories:
- $897 - That’s what I spent on housing-related expenses in October. This includes the mortgage, association dues and all the utilities. This is a fairly static amount every month.
- $209 - The cost for gas in October. This was up more than $70 from last month. However, please remember that October included the hunting trip up north which is like a 6 hour drive one way and the trip to the North Shore which also used up a bunch of gas. Hopefully gas prices will continue to fall (under $2 now) and my gas expenses will continue to drop. Another factor will be the coming winter when we tend to hole up inside and try to stay warm. That should help limit my driving.
- Food! This was the big expense of September (over $400) and I’m really happy to report that food spending was down big time in October. I spent $192 eating out (still too much!) and another $50 on groceries.
- $300 - I donated this amount to charitable causes in October which included a $20 Christmas gift for Sergio, my Compassion child from Bolivia.
- I don’t have super specific categories when recording my spending throughout the month, so $250 worth of October expenses ended up be recorded as Miscellaneous. $95 of that was spent on party supplies for the big bonfire party. The rest was really just miscellaneous stuff here and there, though I did also include my $45 cell phone bill in this category.
All in all, I’m fairly pleased with my spending in October. I still need to work on limiting my eating out, but also need to be careful not to limit my social life in the process. There were also several miscellaneous expenses that I could have done without. I will try to limit these types of purchases in November and so far I’m doing pretty well!
Posted by Forest on October 23, 2008
I just spent $18.97 to renew my subscription to Entrepreneur magazine for another 3 years. I’ve been a subscriber for almost 4 years now and I think it’s a great magazine. I find myself inspired by all the entrepreneurs and their stories. There are also a ton of helpful tips in it. I think the 3 years subscription for just about 50 cents an issue is an incredible value.
This morning a coworker gave me a $20 gift card today because her husband got it for Christmas last year and it is for a store that he doesn’t like. But I do. Score! This little gift from her offsets the price of the magazine subscription!
Posted by Forest on October 21, 2008
I’m finally getting around to updating you on my last two weekends. I’m sure you all were anxiously waiting to hear about how awesome our bonfire was two weekends ago. Let me tell you, it was awesome. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
On Friday, October 10th, Bird and I headed over to St. Paul and stopped for dinner at our favorite Thai place. That cost me $36. From there we walked over to the Lowertown Art Crawl and visited a friend of mine who does ceramics. I was tempted to buy some of his work because it’s so amazing, but I didn’t. Then we wandered through a few more studios before heading for home. We needed it to be an early night because the next day was going to be a big day.
On Saturday, I got up early and picked up two friends before picking up Bird. Then the four of us headed to T’s farm where we had built the bonfire for our Fall party. On the way, we stopped for breakfast at McDonald’s which cost $9.36 because I paid for everyone. We also stopped at Walmart to get groceries for the party. $38.16 later and I had burgers and brats to grill, buns, pop, and chips. We also stopped for gas and paid $26.60. Upon arriving at the farm, we put the finishing touches on the fire. Here’s what the finished bonfire looked like:
I’m pretty proud of it. After the fire was finished, all our friends arrived and we spent the afternoon doing fun things in the Fall weather. As night fell, we lit the ship and watched it burn:
That’s me and T.
It was a great day and everything I had hoped it would be.
On Sunday, Bird and I went to church and then went back to her place and made lunch. We rented 21 from the Redbox which cost me $1.07. I also got a cooler at Caribou before lunch for $4.75. The movie was okay, sort of entertaining, but overall pretty forgettable. It was a nice waste of an afternoon when we just felt like being lazy.
So that was two weekends ago; now for last weekend.
As you know, I took off Friday from work and headed up North near the Canadian border. I brought along Bird and T. We once again stopped at McDonald’s for breakfast. This time I only paid for Bird and myself -> $7.66. We spent the weekend just having a good time; four-wheeling, hunting, hiking, etc. T and I both shot a grouse but because we only got those two, I gave mine to T. So much for hunting as a means to save money on food. Despite the lack of birds, we still had a lot of fun.
Here’s a picture from the trip:
We left around noon on Sunday and headed for home. Once again, we stopped for McDonald’s. You’d think I really love McDonald’s, but I don’t, it just happens to be the most prevalent fast food in Northern Minnesota. This time Bird paid for me, but after lunch we decided we wanted dessert and I paid for the three of us -> $7 (paid in cash so I’ve rounded up). Also stopped for gas on the way home and paid $26.65.
And that folks, is a brief summary of my last two weekends. Sorry that it took so long to get them posted.
Posted by Forest on September 30, 2008
Sunday was not a no spend day. I just checked my credit card statement and I totally forgot that I spent $24.02 at Cabela’s on Sunday. I had a $20 gift card that my brother regifted to me (he got it for Christmas and he gave it to me for my birthday) and I put the other $4.02 on my credit card. I bought three boxes of shotgun shells to use for trap shooting at T’s farm that afternoon. It was a lot of fun and I shot pretty well.
I just wanted to keep it honest around here but that also goes to show how easy it is to let things slip and acts as a good reminder to stay diligent if you’re trying to track where all your money goes.
Posted by Forest on
Friday night was a lazy night in. Bird was going to come over after work and we were planning on having leftovers for dinner and then just taking it easy and Redboxing it or watching Buffy. Yes, we’ve recently begun watching Buffy The Vampire Slayer
on DVD and we’re really enjoying it. We’re borrowing the seasons from a friend which makes it cheap and fun entertainment. Anyways, I ran to Target after work to buy some bread for dinner and have a some photos developed. Total of that trip was $6.51. Bird ended up working late, so we had a very late dinner and then watched only one episode of Buffy.
Saturday morning I slept in and then worked on various internet projects. After watching Arsenal lose to Hull City, I went to a BBQ with Bird. We didn’t stay very late because we had plans to go bowling with Bird’s sister and boyfriend who were in from out of state. Bird’s brother ended up coming along as well. So the five of us bowled the night away. I bowled a 162 and blew everyone out of the water during the first game. That’s probably in my top five highest scores ever. Then in the second game, I didn’t even break 100. I scored a 99 and came in dead last. Oh well. At the end of the night, I ended up treating everyone because Bird’s sister is in college, her boyfriend doesn’t really have a real job (I don’t think) and her brother only has a part-time job, so it was the least I could do. Plus, I want them to like me :) All that bowling (and fun!) only cost $35.
And Sunday was a no spend day! After church, Bird treated me and our friend T to lunch at Panera. We then went up to T’s farm to cut some wood and build a big ol’ bonfire that we plan on burning in mid-October for a big Fall party we are throwing.
So there’s my recap. A little over $40 for the weekend. Not too shabby.
Posted by Forest on August 20, 2008
For the first time in my life, I missed a payment. And I got hit with a fee because of it.
Here’s the story: I have two credit cards. One, I use all the time for everything I can because I get cash back. The other, I have as a backup because the first isn’t accepted everywhere. The other day I logged into my account because I realized I had used it a couple of times lately, and wanted to make sure I got it paid off in time. The problem is, I was already a day late. My payment was due on the 10th and I had logged in on the 11th. I paid the balance immediately, hoping that would be the end of it.
Of course, it never is. The next day I logged in and saw that I had been hit with a $15 late payment fee. My first late payment ever and I was just so mad at myself. I decided to call and try to get it waived. I’ve been a cardholder for just about 10 years and I’ve never missed a payment.
So after about 5 minutes of going through the phone menus and being on hold with customer service, I finally got a live person and asked her to waive the fee. She said she couldn’t waive it, but that she would cut it in half. I was happy with that. I’ll consider that a $7.50 “stupid” payment for not checking my account in a more timely manner. I won’t be making that mistake again!
Posted by Forest on July 27, 2008
Yesterday morning, I paid for a haircut for the first time in about 10 years. Through high school and college, I didn’t really care much about how my hair looked so I had friends cut it or I cut it myself. It’s actually not that hard and I didn’t think it looked that bad. I’m sure a professional could do better, but it didn’t look that bad.
Well, lately, I’ve still been having a friend cut it, but she lives far away now and it’s quite a production to schedule some time with her. And I realize it would be very easy just to drop in and get it cut somewhere, but really, paying 15 bucks or so to get my haircut every 3 or 4 weeks, that just doesn’t jive with my frugality.
But now HB has invited me to a friend’s wedding next weekend and my hair was in need of a cut and I didn’t think I could schedule with my haircutting friend. And while I could have tried it myself, it is noticeably a poorer cut when I do that. And there’s the matter of HB herself these days and the fact that I desire to look a little more presentable for her sake. All this leads me to paying for a haircut yesterday. A coupon had arrived in the mail the other day so I used that as my justification.
So I went and it was okay, but I don’t ever want to pay for another haircut again. The cut looks fine, but it doesn’t look THAT much better than when a friend cuts it. And I hate having to make the small talk with the stylist. And I hate having to pay for something that I could get for free.
So with coupon, including tip: I paid $13 for my haircut.
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