$6.45 - snacks in Breezewood on the way back to DC

$10.86 - new headphones on sale from Radio Shack

$5.16 - Baja Fresh burrito

$6.11 - MTO (made to order) chicken sandwich and diet Coke from Sheetz (love that PA institution)

$20 - money to Laura for gas and tolls for ride to and from Pittsburgh

Total = $31.27

$19 - groceries to make sweets to take home for T-day (sugar cookies and cranberry bread again, and a Caramelized Apple and Pecan Pie)

$9.80 - Long Hook IPA for me

Total: $28.80

$.99-soda water

$10 - money added to laundry card

I really dislike doing laundry.  I am happy to have units in my building, and it's very convenient that I don't need quarters, etc, and I know I should be happy I'm not outside with a bucket and a washboard every time I want some clean clothes, but second only to vacuuming, laundry is definitely my most disliked chore.   I went through some mental acrobatics on my walk home trying to figure out whether 1) I had to do laundry right away (yes), and 2) could I somehow manage to take it home over Thanksgiving (no-logistically would have been a nightmare).  So I sucked it up and laundered.  And it's done.  For a couple of weeks anyways :)

Smoke-Out Week One

I am very pleased to report that it has now been over 1 week since I quit smoking, and I feel great!  This time around it has actually been pretty easy, I didn't have very bad withdrawal symptoms, and I don't really have the urge to smoke that often.  I know the hardest part is the long-haul nature of quitting smoking, so 1 week is just that, 1 week.  But that's how it goes, 1 day/week at a time :)  As of this morning, according to my smoking counter, I have saved $18.35 by not smoking 73 cigarettes, and have added 13 hours and 27 minutes to my life (not sure how they calculate that last one, but who cares!)

Saturday:

$21.82 - misc groceries from Metro K

$4 - money added to Metro Card to get to Ross' to play Guitar Hero all night long (I have never loved a video game before)

$11.98 - beers for Ross'

$14 - cab home

Total = $51.80

Sunday:

$14.16 - smoked salmon, baguette, and an Orangina from Marvelous Market

$32 - fresh, local, organic cheese and apples from the Dupont farmer's market

Total: $44.16

I spent all day Sunday cooking and baking (and watching season 2 of The Wire).  I really do wish I could just cook and bake and make things all the time, but I am thinking I need to add at least one other hobby into the mix, because I end up with ridiculous amounts of food, and not everything freezes well, and eventually my co-workers are going to get weirded out that I bring in massive amounts of baked goods all the time.  But it was fun anyways :)  I made a Chicken Sausage and Bean Casserole, modified slightly to include spinach and feta chicken sausage, and some more spinach baked into the whole thing (and without the sage leaves, because I didn't have any), Cranberry Bread - this was an absolute winner and I'll be making some more to take to my Grandma's for Thanksgiving, and Soft Vanilla Sugar Cookies, which were also delicious, although I made myself ill eating too much cookie batter, and have brought all the cookies into work to get rid of them (I think I'll make a batch of these for Thanksgiving too.)

$25 - copay at my new doctor's (I LOVE her)

$5.39 - breakfast sandwich and coffee at Starbucks

$10 - prescription copay

$5.49 - burrito from Baja Fresh

$39.50 - grilled cheese sandwich and tater tots and some very delicious micro-brews at Galaxy Hut with Emma

$23.70 - more drinks at O'Sullivan's with Emma, Maureen (friend from work) and her brother

$17 - more drinks at Whitlow's  (probably could have done without these last few :)

$8 - cab home from Farragut West Metro

$7.70 - icecream and a donut from 7-11 at 3:15am (ah well)

Total = $141.78 (ah these epic nights out do cost me, but they are so fun!)

$30.50 - Power Hours with Emma: two very good glasses of Cabernet, a delish plate of nibbly things, and admission to the Corcoran's Richard Avedon exhibit - too fun and very chic :)

$7.70 - cat food and litter

Total = $38.20

$11.99 - bottle of Rip Snorter Shiraz-Cab from Best Cellars

$11.75 - medium popcorn and a medium diet Coke at the movies

"Medium" is a funny word for a bag of popcorn that I could have crawled into, and a diet Coke that resembled a gallon of milk, but I suppose that is how they make you feel better about paying $11.75 for it all.  To get me back for several cab rides this past Friday, Emma very kindly bought my movie ticket to see Quantum of Solace (Daniel Craig is, in a word, yummy), so I can't even imagine her damage for the evening.

Money spent: $0

Fantastic free thing: I did yoga for the first time in a looooong time Monday night.  It felt great to get back to it, although I was amazed how inflexible I am these days.  The yoga was inspired by the fact that I also quit smoking, so can now theoretically exercise whenever I feel like.  And there is no better exercise than yoga to make you appreciate your ability to breathe, or lack thereof.

Weekend Weekend

Saturday: Recovery

$6.82 - Vitamin water, potato chips and a donut from 7-11 (needed a quick sugar boost)

$31.82 - miscellaneous groceries from Metro K to make Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes (recovery/comfort food)

Total = $38.64

Sunday: Productivity

Woke up at 9am on Sunday ready to go!  Had a leisurely breakfast of coffee and more mashed potatoes (I know, I know, but they're just so good!), then went to a new church down the street, then to the farmer's market to buy lots of butternut and acorn squash, apples, and apple cider ($34), then to Harris Teeter for more groceries ($117.46), specifically the needed ingredients for Braised Brisket with Cranberries and Holli's delicious Ginger Pumpkin Bread, which I happily spent the afternoon cooking/baking, before Emma arrived to help me devour all this deliciousness (the mashed potatoes made another appearance.)  I also picked up the needed ingredients for a couple other pumpkin-based treats and a White Chili Chipotle Chicken, which should be making an appearance later this week.  Nothing makes me happier these days than cooking!

Total = $151.46

$5.39 - coffee and fruit from Starbucks

$80 - 2 parking tickets from my recent trip to Boston (next time I'm just going to suck it up and park in the garage for $30/day.  It would be cheaper.)

$6.81 - diet Coke and (my last) pack of Camel Lights 

$9.35 - salad from The Brown Bag

$17.44 - two bottles of wine for dinner at Emma's

$5 - added to Metro card

$30 - various cabs to and from various bars all over Arlington

$28 - drinks at Ragtime

$19 - drinks at Whitlows

$8.71 - lamb curry at East West Grill at 2:30am

Total = $209.70

The Best Things In Life Are Free

So Thursday was actually a net income day for me.  After posting about the Bare Necessities postage return, I received an email and a refund for that $5.60, and since I didn't spend any other money, my net total was (+)$5.60.

Which brings me to my next point, that judging by money spent, I didn't do anything on Thursday, or at least didn't do anything fun or worth noting, when in fact I had dinner at this very nice and very chic place with my totally awesome friend, Zoe, who treated me to dinner (thank you!).

This has been bothering me in general, as some of the most fun things I do don't cost any money, so they also don't get any play on this here paean to consumerism. So, from now on, I am going to try to note at least one thing every day that was fun and FREE!  

Fun and Free (for me):

Dinner with Zoe at Central by Michel Richards

$1.49 - diet Coke (I am an addict)

$5.60 - postage to return some purchases from Bare Necessities, my new favorite online store

$7 - cookies from a girl selling them for her school (she was probably not selling them for her school, and they were pretty terrible, but I have a hard time saying no to kids)

$28.70 - burgers and beers with Emma at Sign of the Whale

Total = $42.79

$30 - prescription

$6.32 - peppermint patties and Camel Lights (I am trying not to smoke at work in anticipation of my upcoming quit date - November 17 - but I had a meeting with my boss and CEO and now have more work to get done in the next month than is humanly possible.)

$11.61 - delicious Montecristo sandwich and diet Coke from Breadline (my favorite indulgence)

$19.14 - Pantene Pro-V Curls shampoo and conditioner (I have finally given up on trying to use all the mini-bottles in my bathroom in an attempt to save money - I miss my products!), mascara ($2 off coupon from CVS, couldn't help myself), tampons, and a free diet Coke (another CVS coupon) - all in all I saved over $12 in one trip - whoo hoo!

Total = $67.07

$9.02 - Camel Lights, copy of the NYT, and a bottle of Perrier

Lazy Sunday

I managed to not leave my apartment on Sunday, which was very nice.  Watched Netflix movies (Ratatouille, The Savages, and episodes of Friday Nights Lights) and read and hung out with Jack.

$17.97 - Netflix

$82.62 - groceries at Harris Teeter to make chocolate-glazed pumpkin cookies and Moroccan chicken stew with sweet potatoes (I bought saffron for the first time ever - damn is it expensive!!)

$19 - two drinks at Napolean (terribly over-priced lounge)

$5 - cab to get from house party to Dan's Cafe on 18th St (most hilarious dive bar ever)

$32 - 7 drinks at Dan's Cafe (not all of them for me)

$5 - jumbo slice pizza (the ultimate in hang-over prevention)

Total = $143.62

$5.95 - yogurt parfait and coffee from Starbucks (I could not get myself out of bed today!)

$4.72 - Nacho Burrito from Baja Fresh (yay $2 off coupon!)

$5 - money added to Metro card to get to Ross' for a night of Guitar Hero (surprisingly hard) and Wii Sports (whoo hoo!)

$19 - ordered in Chinese food with Alexis and Ross

Total = $34.67

$36.96 - 2009 New Yorker desk diary in Honey Suede

I love these things.  I use them as journals rather than a planner, just enough space to keep track of what's happened, but not enough to make me feel bad about not writing pages and pages every night.  Plus they look classy on your book shelf :)

$19.76 - two kinds of facewash (I'm breaking out like a pimply teenager these days) and a diet Coke

$18.53 - two bottles of wine from Best Cellars

$25.56 - groceries to make Cauliflower Risotto with Brie and Almonds for dinner with Alexis and Ross (it was delicious and turned out perfectly!) 

Total = $100.81

why I need to stop eating out

even on the cheap, it's still pricey:

$5.58 - bacon egg and cheese sandwich and not very good coffee

$7.63 - burrito from Baja Fresh and a diet Coke

$16.72 - Delirium Tremens and olive tapenade plate with Zoe at L'Enfant

$5.95 - milk, club soda, and 2 copies of the Washington Post Obama Victory headline

Total = $35.88

Rock the Debt

I have been meaning to do this since I started this blog, but since I just paid off $5k plus in debt in one day, I'm inspired to follow through.  What you see here is a chart of my credit card debt since December 20, 2004.  What follows is a brief tour of the last 4 years of my free-spending, credit-binging, occasional-guilt-ridden-attempts-at-reform lifestyle.  The x-axis of the chart isn't accurate in terms of elapsed time (each point is equi-distant instead of marking actual time passed) but I will try to make up for that in my explanations.  So here goes:

December 20, 2004

Debt: $5,923.34

I had just graduated from Oberlin (with about $3-$4k in debt) in June 2004, and was thrilled to have a job with a real salary (not hourly wage) and health benefits to boot.  Ian and I lived in a relatively cheap and spacious apartment, and both had budgets that we tried to stick to, and in general didn't do a terrible job of it, but we did buy THE COUCH (black leather, very posh looking in our new apartment, too expensive for roommates in Boston making combined less than $60k/year).  THE COUCH sort of sums up my relationship with money, in that I knew I couldn't afford it, and I didn't need it, but I was more than happy to buy it on credit because I held the eternally belief that in a future life I would: 1) make more money and 2) be more responsible about spending/budgeting.  This future life has never really arrived, I've just been lucky and handed a couple of golden opportunities, but I digress.  THE COUCH and other new apartment necessities, along with a propensity to spend too much money going out in this new and exciting city and the utter delight of having enough money (or enough credit) to buy lots and lots of Christmas presents for my family (after 4 years of college where I couldn't), left me almost $6k in debt by the end of 2004.  Considering that this was 25% of my pre-tax salary, I was understandably panicked and decided that I needed to DO SOMETHING about my debt.  It was keeping me up at night and making me anxious in general.  The something I decided to do was to each month track the total amount of credit card debt I was in, figuring that if I recorded it, then I would be more aware of it, and more inclined to pay some of it off.

That didn't happen.

July 1, 2005

Debt: $6,551.94

Elapsed Time: 6 months

Average Debt Accumulated Per Month: $105

So, in the 6 months after my plan to start paying off my debt, I actually added $600 to the grand total.  This is less $ than I would have added otherwise, so in some ways the whole tracking thing worked, but not really.  I still spent more than I made every month, even if only by about $100.  

October 3, 2005

Debt: $8,732.38

Elapsed Time: 3 months

Average Debt Accumulated Per Month: $727

What happened?  Two things.  1) Ian and I moved from our spacious and cheap but unfortunately located apartment in Jamaica Plain to our cramped and terribly un-kept-up but wonderfully located apartment in Inman Square, and 2) I got a raise at work. A really significant one, like, 25% significant when you added in the bonus.

So, the move, combined with my illusion that I was now totally financially solvent and would have no problem paying off my debt whatsoever led to this rapid accumulation.  I would like to say that all $2,181 of the extra debt was move-related, but that would be a blatant lie.  I spent a lot of money on other crap too, because I thought I could.

August 8, 2006

Debt: $7,133.07

Elapsed Time: 10 months

Average Debt Accumulated Per Month: (-)$160

Wow.  I actually spent almost a year steadily paying off debt.  Of course I could never lay off the credit cards completely, which is why it took me 10 months to pay off a relatively small amount of debt, but hey, the general trend was down, and I certainly felt good about that.  What I did NOT feel good about was my job, which I had come to loathe, and so was very actively pursuing a new one, which I got, later in August.  This new job and higher base salary (combined with another move to a big, beautiful and pleasantly located apartment) led to:

July 13, 2007

Debt: $15,350.45

Elapsed Time: 11 months

Average Debt Accumulated Per Month: $747

HOLY SHIT!  How did I manage to rack up $15,000 in debt!  Half of it in one year!!  My total debt now represented 39% of my pre-tax salary.  39%.  I felt trapped.  Face it, I was trapped.  How had this happened?  Each year out of college I made more money than the year before, and each year, I basically managed to double my credit card debt.  I was a sucker for the American consumer system, and frequently having too much fun to care.  But $15k?  This was too much.  I couldn't tell my parents, or most of my friends, and I felt stupid for getting myself in this situation, and I didn't really see a way out.  I had fantasies about coming home and checking the mail and finding anonymous checks made out to me for no reason whatsoever.  That's how out of touch I was, I didn't even both coming up with plausible explanations for why the mysterious fantasy benefactor checks appeared, they just did.  

Needless to say, this never happened.  

Instead, I got a phone call from the new CEO at my old job, asking me to get lunch and talk to him about my experiences in my previous position.  That conversation led to a job offer to move to DC, which led to some serious negotiations (I asked for things I thought I could never get because I DID NOT want to leave Boston), and eventually an agreement and an acceptance of a new job in a new city, effective December 1, 2007.  I had some time to say goodbye to the city I loved and the friends I would miss so terribly, and time to fall in love with someone who was even further away from my new home city than Boston.  I also had a way out of my mountain of debt.  An actual plan and path and way to get there.  I never had a choice, my future was in D.C.

May 15, 2008

Debt: $10,209.47

Elapsed Time: 10 months

Average Debt Accumulated Per Month: (-)$514

So I said goodbye to Boston, and I said goodbye to my friends, and my cool job in international academia, and the world's most amazing roommate and my dearest friend, and I moved to DC.  And I did not like it.  But I paid off debt.  Not as fast as I had planned, but I paid it off, little by little.  And it was all worth it.

October 8, 2008

Debt: $11,392.91

Elapsed Time: 5 months

Average Debt Accumulated Per Month: $237

What the hell?  Accumulating debt again so soon?  But I was doing so well!  Don't worry.  This increase in debt was due more to an accurate and fair assessment of ALL my credit card debt (some of it hidden away in not-technically-credit-card type arrangements) than a lapse in my debt-slaying dedication.  I also got side-tracked from my debt goal by first spending a lot of money trying to keep a relationship alive, and then spending a lot of money trying to distract myself from the fact that the relationship was dead.  Needless to say, neither worked, but both were very expensive.

October 31, 2008

Debt: $5,547.55

Elapsed Time: 1 month

Average Debt Accumulated Per Month: (-)$5,845

So here I am today.  Back to right around where I was in 2004, only this debt total is manageable.  6 months manageable.  That's right, in 6 months I should be reporting that I owe $0 to credit card companies.  $0.   And I hope to stay that way for the rest of my life.

BARACK THE VOTE!!

Woke up in VT with one major concern - making it back to DC in time to vote!  Got a cup of Green Mountain coffee and a donut and topped off the tank ($11.38), spent most of the morning at KB's, rode on the back of a motorcycle for the first time (terrifying and awesome), and then off to the airport.  Bought a sandwich ($7), then slept the whole flight back to BWI.  Took the MARC train ($6) to Union station and splurged on a cab home ($13) (it was raining and I am lazy).  The cab driver was this little old man who drove very slowly while text messaging the entire time.  Somewhat alarming but because we were never going faster than 15 miles an hour, not particulary life-threatening.  Dropped off my stuff at home and ran out to BARACK THE VOTE!!  Picked up some tp, water, and Camel Lights on my way home ($8.74), then headed out to VA to hang out with Emma and eat delicious pizza from The Italian Store ($8), and eventually end up at Four Courts to watch Barack win the election, and cry my way through his moving and inspirational speech ($17 on Guinness).  What a day!

Total = $71.12

Manic Monday

Woke up early (7:15am) to take a quick shower and hop in the car, stopped at 7-11 for coffee and a donut ($4.35), then headed up to Burlington to catch my flight back to DC.  Paid a toll on the way ($1.00), bought a bottle of water ($1.49), and filled up the tank (about $45), after exchanging a series of emails with Kyle, decided to stay an extra day in VT, so switched my ticket to stand-by for Tuesday (free), and extended the reservation on my car ($39.15).  KB bought lunch and coffee (free for me), and then I went to see W. ($9) and bought some new books at Borders ($50.82) and started reading The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs at Uncommon Grounds in Burlington, while enjoying a very nice mug of Earl Grey ($3).  Also racked up a $2 ATM fee and $7 for parking.

Total = $162.81 (worth every questionable-decision penny :)

Lazy Sunday

Woke up late on Sunday at Ben and Lauren's, lots of sleep made even better by the extra hour of daylight savings time.  Met up with Tom, Joanne, Laura, Shah, Cal, Carla, Ruari and Rachel Battaglioli (all Oberlin crew) for brunch at Highland Kitchen ($29.30), seriously one of the best brunches I have ever had, reminded me of hipster bars in brooklyn that also do brunch.  I had the smoked salmon and bacon hash, and my table split an order of chili cheese fries - delish!  Afterwards we all went to The Field for a few pints ($17) and Matt and Morgan joined us.  Then back to Ben and Lauren's with Shah, Car, and Ruari with some Long Trail and Sierra Nevada ($23.98) in hand for a very chilled out evening of hanging out and ordering in Thai food ($6).  Such a nice, relaxed day, I feel so lucky to have so many amazing friends all in one city!

Total = $76.28

$3.45 - coffee and two donuts from Dunkin Donuts (with Shah and Matt)
$5.00 - T pass (left mine at home)
$3.65 - Revive Vitamin Water and a large bottle of regular water (Vitamin Water is my friend)

Total = $12.10