July 28, 2008

Money Smarts

Money is definitely one place I am smart and strong (and I'm sure Mr. Right would say it was very sexy). I try my best to only buy what I need, get a deal whenever possible, and make a game out of saving money. Yes I'm enough of a dork that I do actually enjoy saving money!

I have several weaknesses that are works-in-progress. The first being my lunch habits. I eat out at least twice, sometimes all five days a week. I can afford to do so because I was smart and paid off my car early, and no, I'm not robbing my savings (I save almost half my income, and in this tax bracket that's saying a lot).

I could (and often do) argue that I work hard to save money in other places and I "deserve" to splurg on food. But don't I also "deserve" a honeymoon in Belize? I could certainly be saving the $80 I spend a month on fast food for something great like that. As I've mentioned in other posts, my father is also very willing to pack my lunch (with his groceries, so it would very much be a free lunch).

I've decided to switch back to the envelope system for lunch, and hopefully that will make things more difficult on me when I want to run out and grab a burger. Starting this paycheck I'm going to give myself $30 for two weeks. I'm sure that sounds like a lot to most of you. But for me its cutting back $20 a month.

My other weakness is clothes. Yes, I'm that girl. The one who's closet is overflowing. I have a summer closet and a winter closet. I have two medium sized packing boxes that I use to put away seasonal shoes. Right now the boots are put away and the sandals are out.

Mr. Right has laid down a challenge. No shopping for 1 year. Mind you, that doesn't mean nothing new for a year. Because I always get new clothes for Christmas and birthdays. And his mother makes frequent trips to the Yuppyville thrift store, so I get barely worn brand name tops for next to nothing (okay I get them for nothing, she gets them for $0.25 each).

If you're out there and you choose to accept your mission - hold me accountable.

2 comments:

  1. I haven't bought new clothes since before our wedding on May 3rd. Granted thats only like 3 months but it still feels like an eternity! Good luck with a year of no shopping! We might need to organize a clothes swap so we get some new duds to wear:)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Last March (07) I decided to not do any clothes shopping for a year because though I don't ever shop a lot my dresser and closet were also overflowing. I made it all the way to a year without buying anything (except one pair of flip flops becuase our shoe bag had gotten misplaced by the airline and I didn't want to go to a wedding in tennis shoes). It went fine and I still had a lot of clothes so I extended my challange to the end of 2008. I to am blessed with people giving my clothes off and on so it doesn't mean that I never have anything different. But it has been a blessing to cut down on the clutter in my clothes spaces.
    I hope your challange goes well too.

    ReplyDelete

what up yo?