Day Fifteen

Today is the fifteenth day of not spending.

So far Darling and I have purchased toothpaste, razors, a bar of shaving soap, several bus tickets, including the $20 five-day pass and the $30 30-day pass, and a taxi for the purpose of grocery shopping. We also paid some rent and debt.

What we have not purchased is more impressive. This includes alcohol despite hosting a fourth of July party and watching True Blood twice, which usually involves bringing a six pack of cider to share with friends. That's an estimated savings of at least $30 right there. I have also totally refrained from eating out for any reason, including food at work. Resisting the temptation to buy fried food for a shift meal has been my biggest temptation by far. But it's saved at the very least another $10, not to mention 50,000,000 calories.

The longest we've actually gone without exchanging money for goods and services is three days, mostly due to the bus pass situation (now solved).

Tonight I'm going to play games with friends, another ritual associated with a trip to the liquor store. Instead I baked a massive loaf of Challah bread to take.

Lessons From Fasts Past

Yesterday I used the seven day bus and train pass to get to and from work. I'm still frustrated to have spent so much money on something that won't get used for full effect, but at least I'm not steadily bleeding money on bus fare in the meantime.

For someone who "isn't spending," I've been especially obsessed with money. I remember this from Spend Nothing Months past. Coping with compulsive temptation requires cultivating a certain type of self-awareness. It gets slow at work, and I'm watching people eat fries. And even though I'm not hungry and have a packed lunch, even though I don't actually like fries that much, suddenly there seems to be a very compelling argument for just going ahead and buying myself a plate of fries to get through the next half hour of my shift before the dinner rush hits. And even though the answer is "no," my brain wants to chew on the idea, the pros and cons, the potential cravings, the justifications, the socio-economic relations between myself and the bloody stupid fries. If I was spending, I'd just think that it was time for dinner, buy a plate, eat it, feel guilty and greasy for the rest of the night, and wonder what the heck I was thinking spending $40 on food at work over the course of the month when it came time for monthly tabulations.

It's a silly example, but true. Every time I set limitations for myself like this, I can't help but pity the credit addict all the more. I have such a difficult time resisting things I can't afford while limited by the amount of cash in my pocket. How do people cope with $1,000+ lines of credit? I read critiques of spending fasts written by folks who have deluded themselves into thinking that money is about numbers, wants and needs, credit ratings and net worth. Until you truly, voluntarily choose not to spend more than absolutely necessary for a certain period of time, you can't really understand how much spending occurs out of boredom, stress, and habit.

Based on previous experience, I expect the anxiety associated with not spending to go away after about a week. But then, I've only ever "not spent" for a month at a time. What will happen after ten months of financial abstinence?

November Net Worth

So, our total assets for November 2010 chime in at $1,832.24, which is $56 more than last month! Not bad considering we paid the first of three payments for Darling's Spring semester, purchased shoes, entertained guests, splurged on beer last night, and did in fact eat out a total of three times this month.

Our debt, however, is on the rise. It would have decreased by $14 this month, but in fact increased by $463.60 to $11866.27 thanks to the payment plan we set up to pay Darling's tuition. Bleh.

Which does what? Knocks our net worth back down to -$10,034.03, $407.36 less than last month. This is also the fourth month in a row that my net worth has sunk.

Which makes this as good a time as any to announce my November 2010 No Spend Month. Obviously my spending has gotten at least a little out of hand. Sure, I'm not hanging out at the mall or slurping lattes on a daily basis, but I've definitely let myself be thoughtless with my cash flow lately. Capitalism isn't all bad (one could argue), but mindless consumption is deadly. Especially now that Darling is a professional job-hunter again.

Darling and I discussed spending priorities last night and agreed that although we can forgo many luxuries and activities this month, Capoeira is a must. We're going to purchase two month passes, which will get us 8 classes each, for a total of $120. We'll also purchase two monthly bus passes for $40. Along with rent, our total expenses shouldn't amount to more than $1240 this month.

My hope is that by not spending (beyond the aforementioned exceptions), and by my working two jobs for this month, Darling and I can bump our net worth back to where it was last May.

Spend Nothing Month Concludes, March Net Worth

Today is the last day of our first official Spend Nothing Month. How did we do?

This February, despite Darling's unemployment and thanks to over $500 in returned deposits and tax refunds, we had an income of $2,357.

We spent $941 on rent, bus tickets, bills, a doctor's appointment, and film to be developed. We spent a total of $4 due to a misunderstanding about coffee, and $11 on groceries - not because we went over budget, but we forgot our gift card. That's about it.

$228 will be going to charity.

$143 has gone to my student loan company, and $115 will be going towards our family loan.

We have a total of $821 to put into savings.

$40 of that has been declared "fun money," a reward for our perseverance this month. $200 will go to next month's grocery bill, because I don't know how we would have survived the first two weeks of February if we hadn't had money put aside for food. The remainder will go into our school fund.

Now, to look at Net Worth:

Total Assets (money in savings and checking accounts): is a whopping $1,113.29. That's up $847.85 from last month

Our Liabilities (School Debt and Family Debt) comes up to $16,951.47. For the past couple of months I have been including my dental needs with this list, but have discovered that predicting medical costs is a tricky game. My dentist did more work than expected in December, and as a result gave me a discount. Which is great, but now my numbers don't add up. How much more "Dental Debt" does my mouth carry? I'm not sure, and insurance further discombobulates the issue even more. So I hope if you'll excuse me if I go back to recording liabilities in the normal fashion. This way, our debt is $14,709.47, about $258 less than last month.

Which brings our Net Worth to $-13,586.18!!! The highest its been since I started this blog (and don't think the dental issue was just my way of playing silly buggers, I'm determining my Net Worth the same way I did 11 months ago). Over $500 of that is slotted for school, but it's nice to finally have a savings again!

School Excitement

After doing some research and discovering what everyone else in the world already has (that ITT Tech is extremely expensive and considered sub par as far as technical schools go), I have decided to just call and cancel the appointment and be excited about ACC again. So excited, in fact, that I spent all last night making up my future schedule.

This Summer I will be taking the Intro to Drafting and Autocad courses every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 9 a.m. to 12:40 pm. I will complete two courses (one after the other) by August, and this will cost me $432. Do you know what cost me $432 the last time I tried going to college? Books! I'll probably also take a maths course, but I won't know until I take the placement exam next month.

Kitchen Thrift

Meredith at Like Merchant Ships has been living a time warp by sticking to a 1950's budget menu all week. Desserts at every meal? Sounds like my house. Especially since we cut corner store goodies out of our No Spend budget and I've returned to my favorite hobby: baking.

I was impressed with Meredith's observations on how little variety the 1950's budget boasted. Roast beef three days in a row, and taters for the entire week. This was before tomatoes and squash were available and affordable year-round thanks to creative (and questionable) agricultural techniques and shipping.

Darling impressed me with his kitchen thrift during Tuesday's community meal. The majority of our $2 head of organic spinach went into his Indian curry, the smaller leaves were chopped with the salad along with a couple of cauliflower leaves, kale, and broccoli from the garden.

The roots and stems of the spinach were then washed and put aside along with celery tops, peeled cauliflower stem, cabbage, potatoes, lentils, and black eyed peas for a delicious and hearty soup which fed us and two friends last night.

Now if only our garden produced all our vegetables, at least for the Summer, we'd really be getting thrifty.

Spending

As per Lizzie's advice, we did break the rules and splurge a little. Darling did an Indian community meal last night, and I went out at the last minute and spent $6 on sultanas and spices. The delicious dinner was worth it.

Darling also bought two bus passes yesterday ($10), I helped mom with her phone bill, and we sent our first debt payment so far this month ($143 to the loan company). So hopefully our net worth will increase a few dollars this month, for all our not spending...

Tour of Spending

Tomorrow I tour a technical school campus in North Austin. I'm not especially interested in this particular school, but they may offer piles of financial aid or other incentives worth exploring. Can you explore an incentive? Probably not. Moving swiftly forward...

Our third Monday of Spend Nothing Month went smoothly enough. We were actually under budget by $6 this shopping trip. I am beginning to pine for our weekly lunch at Veggie Heaven, however. I was attacked by such a case of the munchies at a friend's house I actually asked Darling if for some reason he had the debit card on him. I wanted to cheat so bad! Of course he didn't. I ended up cutting up an apple from our groceries and sharing it with a side of peanut butter.

As much as I'm missing chips and faux shrimp, I have already suggested to Darling that our Spend Nothing celebrations extend into March...Because we're having so much fun. And, um, our current income sort of precludes actual spending anyway. But we'll deal with that when the time comes.

No Promo In The Rain

It rained yesterday for the first time in weeks, and is still raining. I ventured downtown to attend another organic gardening workshop, then hurried to work in the wet and cold. I purchased yet another bus ticket in this endeavor, but it was definitely worth it.

Work evals came out this week and although my stats were mostly above average, they fell just short of what was necessary for promotion. Maybe I should take that as my cue to bow out of customer service, but I don't know anywhere else I could make $10-$15+/hour and get away with giving myself a three-day weekend every single week. I've been spoiled by the amount of time I've had to spend with friends and family and play in the dirt. I'll need that flexible schedule when my classes start in May, and I can't forget how easy it was to make money last Summer. So I'll probably sit tight until September, at which point I might abandon ship rather than weather out another slow season.

Good Morning Chainsaw

Darling and a friend attacked a tree in our back yard with a chainsaw first thing this morning. Branches had broken and damaged the tool shed - years ago!

I staked out a part in the back for a potential corn garden, but I think I'm going to spend more time in the back area determining where we get the most sun and whether I have the nerve to declare 18 sq. feet of the backyard a single vegetable's property. I am the official community garden coordinator, because I find the most joy in getting out there and playing in the dirt, but this doesn't mean I want or have the right or knowledge to throw my weight around.

I picked up a shift this morning and finally made some money. We are less than a hundred dollars away from rent :)

Money Mindset

All month I have been vaguely frustrated about finances. Even though we pledged not to spend excess funds, and stuck to our pledge (except for that $5 over our grocery budget), money has been leeching out of our bank account at a rapid speed. Even though we haven't purchased a single bag of chips, soda, secret restaurant meal, or cheated in any way, we've spent nearly half of what we've earned.

Oh, Duh (it finally hit me), just because we've declared this a month of no spending doesn't mean the expenses will go away.

$50 to COBRA, another $300+ required to cover our last dentist visit, $10 to file our VA taxes online, a $28 overdraft fee because NABCEP cashed Darling's certification check 2 months after he received his certification, two month's worth of bills we're still waiting for the landlord to present us with, and an annual lady's appointment that needs to be scheduled within 30 days...Thank goodness this month's groceries are paid for! It looks like I'll be picking up extra shifts this week.

It occurs to me that although there have had times of more or less abundance, I am almost always concerned about whether or not ends will meet. Whether I was trying to cover rent and survive on $600/month two years ago or working marathon shifts to cover Darling's tuition as well as our European vacation last year, I felt overwhelmed. Yet we have never actually depleted our resources or found ourselves hungry or homeless. And then I take great pride in how we scraped by yet again, as my parents always have.

I think I will work at changing my mindset, because otherwise this style of living may never change. In the past, it was my opinion that "thinking poor" was the secret to living below one's means and escaping poverty. But I'm tired of barely getting by, or convincing myself I am. This coming year I will find a way to change my attitude about money and differentiate between success and struggle.

A Sweet Dilemna

We have about two tablespoons of (organic) white sugar left.

Don't blame my baking, I've been experimenting with honey, syrups, and fruits to placate my sweet tooth. It just didn't make our last grocery run, for which we forgot our lists.

Darling and I consume at least 2 cups of hot sweet tea a day, so this would normally be a perfectly good reason to break our budget and pick up a pound of Domino on the way home from work today. Instead, Darling will have to make due with brown sugar until Monday.

Gardening, Baking, and Budgeting

Today reminds me of why I love Austin, maybe even Texas as a whole. It's a sunny, cool day, and we woke up at the crack of noon to do yard work with a neighbor. About a fourth of our garden is not utilized at this point, so we added a couple of inches compost in preparation for seedlings, which we planted directly into flats. Basil, tomatoes, beets, lavender and spinach are hopefully germinating as we speak. It feels so good to be productive and know that we'll be lightening our grocery load soon. And today was another spend-free day.

So last night it occurred to me that I can probably only expect to make $1200/month until Summer, excluding windfalls like returned deposits and tax refunds. I did a bare-bones budget this morning to see how this would affect us, and was a little startled by the results. Even spending only $10 on transportation and our minimum debt payments, we can't afford to eat out, save, or invest!

Keep in mind that my income fluctuates, sometimes wildly. I've made $30 one day, $200 the next. And I've been working only four-day weeks since the beginning of this year. I think we'll get through February just fine, what with the fact that we don't even have to buy groceries. But we'll be tightening our belts all the same, here at the 20 year challenge - which, ironically - always has me baking yummy cakes and cookies. Tonight we had lovely rice syrup-sweetened banana muffins :)

Yummy Tuesday

The garden is boasting some beautiful broccoli, which ought to be harvested any day now. Darling suggested buying seeds on yesterday's shopping trip, so we came home with a small bag of future Dragon Carrots. I was overwhelmed by today's beautiful Texas weather, so I spent some time weeding, spreading compost, and planting. I also picked up, mopped, and vacuumed the apartment. Dinner was a yummy community meal and meeting, and now we await our Tuesday evening guests and card game.

This is exactly what I wanted from community living, and I am feeling very content.

Also, today is the first this month we haven't spent a single cent. :)

First No Spend Shop

Darling and I spent $5 on shopping today, which is sad and a little frustrating. I mean, $5 after our $40 gift certificate. Maybe I shouldn't have pocketed the cash before leaving the house, but I think maybe someone else (someone darling) shouldn't have decided to go over his alloted budget...

I also bought a dollar bus ticket, bringing this month's spending to $14. However, we had a big lunch before leaving the house to prevent us from eating out (thanks to my lovely cooking husband) and I baked a chocolate cake to share with friends rather than buy chips and soda as we normally do on Mondays. The cake was sweetened with honey, rice syrup, and chocolate chips as we are low on sugar, and half oatmeal since we were low on regular flour. Which practically makes it healthy. So we spent about $30 less than normal, not including groceries.

Day 4 - A Foot Saga

In Virginia I worked for a caterer, which required black shoes. At the time, my only shoes were a pair of white Keds and my heavy work boots, so I borrowed some black, ill-fitting flats from a friend.

After a long, hard night of setting up, serving, and cleaning up after a 200-person banquet, my feet hurt horribly. The next day there was a huge, hard bump on the outer-side of my left foot. It was so sensitive and swollen that Darling was convinced I'd let someone drop a table on it.

Soon after, we moved to Austin. I have no idea why those were the only shoes that came with us. We walked up and down the city streets searching for jobs, and by the end of the week I could barely walk. We bought a pair of black tennis shoes from the Salvation Army with Darling's first pay check, and my feet were soon back to normal.

Sadly, those shoes lasted fewer than eight months. Car-free living is hard on soles, I guess. I purchased a new pair in a hurry just before we left for England, not realizing until it was too late they are at least a size too large. Six months after the death of my black shoes, I am finding that hard lump redeveloping on my left foot.

Long story short, the first thing I thought about buying today was a new pair - yes, an actual NEW pair of shoes - before this foot pain gets much worse. The last time I allowed myself such a luxury was almost four years ago, at Wal-Mart. I'd hate to buy new, affordable shoes because they are pretty much guaranteed to be a combination of plastics and animal products made in slave-labor conditions. New shoes pretty much embody everything I don't want to finance. Of course there are some awesome companies that make vegan shoes out of recycled materials, but these are expensive. I'm pretty torn on the subject, but something will need to be done soon.

Hopefully my feet will at least hold out until March...and if they can last that long, I can probably wait until April, and justify getting myself some nice new shoes for my birthday...

Day Three Of Spend Nothing Month

Darling and I were a little late in agreeing on "our next step," because we wanted to spend the day brainstorming and then I didn't get home from work until past midnight, several hours after our self-imposed deadline. I'm sure we'll forgive us.

We sat at the table and agreed to write down our own hoped-for destinations and tentative timetable. I wanted them to be recorded separately to prevent a "whatever you want, I want," situation.

Fortunately, we both revealed the same choice, and the decision was made without debate. As much as we love the United States, we think it would be best for us to begin our career and family across the ocean, where the pound is strong and the health care is affordable. We have agreed to stay in Austin until June of 2010. In the meantime, we intend to complete our degrees: his in renewable energy, my own in drafting.

So. That decision is made, and I feel a little relieved to have something specific to work towards.

In other news, I spent $1 on a bus ticket to attend a free composting workshop, which was fun and informative. Can't wait to put our garden in.

Day One Of Not Spending

Woke up early to ride my bike to our landlord's bank to deposit our rent check. One of my first morning thoughts was, "oh, we're low on tea, better pick some up when we're out."

Silly Tread, it's not Monday.

Climbing onto my bike, it occurred to me that I'll be passing some stores I enjoy but never visit. Perhaps I should grab the card? Wait, no.

Huffing and puffing my way up the giant hill, I realized that my strength and stamina is not what it used to be and somehow blamed the bike. I longed for the $300+ brand new machines in front of our local bike store, and resented the fact that I'll never get one - I never get anything new. Just then I was passing Goodwill, and thought I should go in and get myself a "never getting anything nice" treat. Right.

Managed to get to the bank and back home, then rushed out to get our laundry, which accidentally spent the night at the laundromat. Which is next to a corner store, where I did not buy a soda, but thought about it.

It's 10:56 a.m., and I have had to tell myself "no" four times since leaving the house less than two hours ago.

Teeth, Unemployment, and Plans

Darling and I went to the dentist yesterday, spent about $320 and got about $1,200 worth of work. Having insurance is pretty amazing, as well as having a tooth basically rebuilt and being able to chew on the right side of my mouth for the first time in years. Our next appointment is at the end of April, at which point I'm hoping to have a new insurance provider through my workplace, as it looks like Darling will be leaving his own. No, he hasn't found another job yet, but the time has come to hunt full-time. He just can't handle his current position any longer.

This coincides perfectly with two of my plans: The previously mentioned Get-Darling-Another-Job-By-March Initiative, and our first ever SPEND NOTHING MONTH. Inspired by Bye-Bye Buy, Darling and I are going to survive February without spending a single cent on anything aside from rent and bills. Even groceries will be bought in $40 increments, with gift cards we're purchasing every Monday along with our regular groceries. We won't be eating out at our favorite restaurant or scarfing gas station junk food during games. No slipping into Goodwill and idly spending even $5 on a great new outfit. We won't even be purchasing the many much-needed computer gizmos we've been purchasing en mass this month to strengthen our new home's super weak signal.

Originally, this was a plan to boost our meager savings by a fat $1,000 or more. Now it looks like a good way for Darling and me to adjust to single income living again.