Done To Zen

Earlier, I promised to go into more detail about what my expenses were for the month of November. Even before I opened the statement for the last month, I knew that I would have something along the lines of $150 - $200 that I should not have spent, and I was right:

And how I wasted the money:

1. The “fast food” spending is so high because I paid for dinner for my family one night. I did pretty well in this area otherwise; I’ve dutifully packed my lunch since the 6th and stayed away from not just restaurants but also shops of all kinds, shapes, and sizes.

2. I obviously spent a lot more in books than I should have. Every single penny of the money could have been saved easily; about three quarters of the way through the month, I ended up subscribing to a technical site, which cost me about $50. (I am, however, going to unsubscribe at the month end, so it’s not a recurring bill.) The rest of the money was spent on a variety of books, of which I only liked about half.

3. It’s kind of funny that $200 is about what I used to spend per month in 2007 and early 2008. Only, then it was on food. Now that I cut down on food, I’m spending it on books, apparently.

4. You might remember that my goal was to not spend on anything that isn’t necessary, but it obviously didn’t work out. I had discretionary spending on the following days:

Of the 30 days in November, I spent on only 8 days. Over half the money was spent on just 2 days, and over 80% of the money was spent on 4 days. If I had exercised a little self-discipline on the 17th and the 21st, the urge to spend would probably have gone away, allowing me to save the money. I can’t say the same about the spending on the 26th and the 28th, though.

Wow, where did all the time go? It feels like July 4th just went by and all of a sudden, it’s July 15th. Anyway, since we’re halfway through July, it’s time for me to look at how I fared so far and what, if any, adjustments to course I should make over the next 15 days.

Finances - what I did right

1. I paid off July’s gas bill in June and decided to save the amount instead of wasting it on something or another.
2. I haven’t used my credit card for an entire 15 days, which is awesome.
3. I’ve successfully completed my 30 day trial of not eating out, and I plan to continue over the rest of the year, but maybe not so stringently. Maybe I will allow myself to eat out a couple of days a month; I don’t know yet.
4. I saved the full amount for my emergency fund.
5. Though I really wanted to work with a personal trainer, I forewent one as he was so expensive. For a while there, I thought I would be going for it despite the cost, but I fortunately decided otherwise soon thereafter.
6. I upped my 401K to 10% of my salary in June, and despite (perceived?) financial hardship, I kept it there through today; I don’t plan on changing it over the course of the year, but who knows? Thy mind is a very fickle thing.
7. Paid off all bills without procrastinating. I rarely ever pay bills late (and only when we have the roll-over functionality) but I for whatever reason keep waiting until the last minute to pay them.

Finances - what I did wrong

1. Haven’t been accurately tracking all my cash spendings. I know I spent around $60 on groceries, so far, but it’s a guesstimate.

Finances - what went right

1. I learned that I will be getting a bonus. Kill me if I touch a penny.
2. I landed an unexpected freelancing job that will earn me a couple of hundred dollars.
3. I landed another unexpected freelancing job that will also earn me a couple of hundred dollars.

Finances - what went wrong

1. There is an expense coming around December (where I do either an atrocious one-time pay or more reasonable monthly payments) that I knew about, but they are offering a pretty significant discount if I do it right now. But it means I have to cough up between five hundred and a couple of thousand dollars right now, depending on how I want to do it. Just so happens I have just enough in my emergency fund to cover this expense, but it will kill me to have to use it. I’m still struggling with what to do.
2. I really wanted to work with a personal trainer but his fees ended up being way too high and so I had to not do it and now I’m feeling bad.

Update on trials

I successfully finished my “stop eating out” trial, like I mentioned before. I also, and I continue to wake up at 4AM every day, though there was this one day when I didn’t because my alarm decided to not work.

I also did an unofficial trial over June that I haven’t listed anywhere (I think?): I stopped reading news; mainly, I stopped reading any and all political blogs that I was subscribed to. I used to be something of a political junkie, but I stopped depressing myself every day with, well, depressing news (it is far harder to find something positive on political blogs than it is to find even in news, if you can believe that).

Though I wasn’t really thinking about it, I also fell into the habit of not reading any “real” news (yeah, I go to digg and read some technology/finance stories occasionally). I realized it after maybe 10 days and from then on stayed away from newspapers consciously.

Another habit I wanted to try unofficially — which means that it’s OK if I slip up — is stop purchasing ice cream at Cold Stone. Having come upon it accidentally, I’ve been going to it pretty regularly the last two months or so. Yesterday marked the end of this trial, and I can’t say that it was particularly hard. Not getting to use my credit card for 15 of those 30 days might have helped. ;-)

On July 10, I’ve also quietly celebrated my 6 months of chocolate fasting with a big chocolate cake. Just kidding. I actually didn’t celebrate it at all — I didn’t even realize it until yesterday. I do think this is the longest I’ve ever went without eating chocolate. I still get the urges, especially when I’m blind-sided by pictures of and/or actual chocolate manifestations, but it’s hard to give up after so many days of staying strong. :-) My biggest fear is that I will accidentally eat something that has chocolate in it.

You might have remembered that I once upon a time (well, 15 days ago) informed you that I would be running/writing in the morning. This failed to happen. I haven’t written a single thing this month (on my book) and I did run a couple of times, but it was in the evening and not in the morning. This isn’t too great, but that’s life sometimes, and I’m OK with pushing them back to August. We shall see.

So: I completed 8 trials so far this year (chocolate and vending machine fastings, making my bed every day/morning, karate, waking up at 4AM, restaurant fasting, political blogs fasting, news fasting).

Ratings

Objectively-speaking: 9 out of 10
Emotionally-speaking: 4 out of 10