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30 Oct 09 – Weekly Expenditure Adventure: Week 8
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I was on a business trip this week, which took care of most of my meals. Even so, here are the totals:
| Saturday | $11.84 | Snacks | |||
| Sunday | $0.00 | ||||
| Monday | $5.00 | Laundry | |||
| Tuesday | $13.74 | Snacks | |||
| Wednesday | $16.83 | Dinner | |||
| Thursday | $12.39 | Snacks | |||
| Friday | $169.90 | lnch, gas, parking at airport | |||
| Total | $229.70 |
Quite a few snacks. However, I couldn't exactly bake a batch of cookies in my hotel room, so I was limited there.
$70 of this week's expenditure was parking at the airport, which I'll get back, so really I only spent $159.70. Huzzah!
I definitely think that just keeping track of my expenditures has made me subconsciously spend less.
27 Oct 09 – The Importance of Conferences
I'm at a conference this week, for work. I didn't particularly want to be here. The content (thus far) looks to be of limited use at work (our customers don't want a lot of the features being presented), and I can't do fun stuff at home this week.
But I'm very glad I came.
Because of the people. I see how others are using their systems, and I see how productive and charged and successful they are. And I don't mean "success" in the phony sense of charging down hallways while gripping a binder.
Folks are doing useful things with their software and systems. I want to be like them. I've now got pages of scribbled notes, full of neat ideas for things we can do with our software. I've also got the email addresses of helpful people.
The same is true of most conferences and conventions I've attended. They're worth attending for reasons completely separate from the actual content of the events.
16 Oct 09 – Weekly Expenditure Adventure: Week 7
Okay, now that I'm back to regularly tracking my expenses, let's see how I did:
| Saturday | $50.57 | Gas and tchotchkes at the Renaissance Festival | |||
| Sunday | $0.00 | ||||
| Monday | $0.00 | ||||
| Tuesday | $0.00 | ||||
| Wednesday | $9.63 | Dinner | |||
| Thursday | $10.15 | Lunch | |||
| Friday | $124.69 | Groceries, Halloween party ingredients, lunch | |||
| Total | $184.88 |
Not only are these fairly minimal expenses (and mostly due to $50 worth of Halloween party ingredients on Friday), I'm particularly proud of spending no money for three days. I didn't intend it; I just noticed on Monday that I'd spent nothing the day before, and wondered how long I could last. I ended the run with a delicious Rueben and hot tea at a local cafe Wednesday night.
And this is one of the hidden utilities of tracking my expenses: I find unexpected ways to save money. I become much more conscious of my spending. A few months ago, I simply never would have been aware of how much I'd been spending in the previous few days.
9 Oct 09 – Weekly Expenditure Adventure: Week 6-ish
Yeah, I haven't been keeping up with this for a couple of weeks, so it's more like week 10. But it's week 6 of keeping track. Whatever!
| Saturday | $44.53 | Gas and shipping a DVD | |||
| Sunday | $16.08 | Lunch | |||
| Monday | $50.80 | Pumpkins, mums, and veggies | |||
| Tuesday | $7.24 | Lunch | |||
| Wednesday | $0.00 | ||||
| Thursday | $9.79 | Lunch and a brownie | |||
| Friday | $92.41 | Groceries, Halloween stuff, lunch | |||
| Total | $220.85 |
Not bad! This doesn't count bills, of course (electronic bill pay). I really should include that in future, now that I look at it.
Anyway: I'm pretty pleased! That's not bad for a week.
7 Oct 09 – Expenditures, Expenditures
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You may have noticed the lack of Weekly Expenditure Adventure posts on here. Why? I fell off the wagon.
As easy as it is to track one's expenditures, it's just as easy to forget. And then you face days' worth of half-remembered purchases, and going to the mental effort of remembering just feels like too much work. 'Cause there's always something else to do.
Which is no good excuse. I'm reporting my expenditures to keep myself honest about my finances, and I can't be honest if I don't know what's going on. So these records are important, even if I can't remember every price down to the penny.
So I sat down a few days ago and rebuilt my expenditures as best I can remember. I'm back on the wagon.
I refuse to let laziness get in the way of improving myself.