Ten Bucks A Day

Back on Track

2008-06-01T10:58:00.000-07:00

Internet, I feel fat and gross. And I woke up this morning and decided to do something about it.

I'm not, actually, that fat, although I did gain five or ten pounds last semester when I threw all self-restraint to the wind and fell into full-on emotional eating. And in the long run, that kind of junk food indulgence only makes me less healthy and less happy.

Unfortunately, food that's healthy AND cheap is hard to come by. After all, a Totino's party pizza is only a dollar, and a packet of ramen is only fifteen cents, but they don't count as nutritious. They might not even count as food.

So here's the plan:

Breakfast: Fried egg sandwich

Lunch: Veggies and a whole grain

Dinner: Veggies and something in the beans/legumes category.

I don't really care if the beans come at lunch and the whole grain at dinner or vice versa; it's just a way of trying to make each day balanced. So, for example, lunch could be a salad and a cup of bean chili, and dinner could be rice pilaf with steamed broccoli and sweet potato fries. Or lunch could be a quinoa salad and dinner could be chickpea burgers and cole slaw. Or lunch could be baked beans and lettuce wraps and dinner could be mashed cauliflower and millet.

I was very pleased with this plan. It does what I need: it's balanced, flexible, and above all SIMPLE. But I had no idea how much it was going to cost, so it was with some trepidation that I headed out to Central Market. And it turned out to be fantastic! I got everything I needed to make almost everything I just mentioned for under thirty bucks. Granted, I had a few things at home already, but all in all, I think this is really impressive:

Bulk food:

0.18 lb wild rice 2.32

0.50 lb brown rice 0.50

0.54 lb millet 0.64 (it's a grain)

1.12 lb chickpeas 1.56

1.25 lb kidney beans 1.74

1.38 lb great northern beans 2.19

0.29 lb sunflower seeds 0.75

tahini 2.20

Veggies:

bean sprouts 0.32

carrots 0.79

celery 1.79

garlic 0.50

ginger 0.45

vidalia onion 0.92

green onions 0.79

red bell pepper 2.15

baby spinach 2.40

green cabbage 1.29

cauliflower 3.99

Other:

rotel tomatoes 0.92

For a grand total of 28.21. Hell yeah!

What have we learned? Brown rice is cheap and wild rice is expensive. Cabbage is cheap and cauliflower is expensive. And you can buy a lot of beans for practically nothing. Oh, and I was going to get frozen peas but I forgot.

I made the mashed-cauliflower and millet thing this afternoon and it actually turned out well (this is my other major fear with all this: I am a lousy cook). It used half the millet, cauliflower, and onion and made five servings, so I figure that's about $1.10 per serving. And I have chickpeas and kidney beans soaking to make the chickpea burgers tonight.

And hopefully I will actually eat all these damn vegetables before they go off.

Spending for June 1

2008-06-01T10:50:00.000-07:00

$28.21 Central Market

Which, if you include the -$34.40 from the last time I posted a spending log, puts me at -$62.61.

Two points:

1) It has been a month since I last posted a spending log. Part of that was getting busy, and part of it was being lazy. For this week, at least, I'm going to update every day. Student loans will be coming due soon.

2) I got SO MUCH FOOD for under thirty bucks! It is really pretty exciting. With the exception of a can of Ro-Tel tomatoes, I bought exclusively veggies and bulk food. Rock on.

Windfall, Part One

2008-05-20T16:15:00.000-07:00

You know, graduating is a lovely thing. Your parents come in to town. They tell you how proud of you they are. There is lots of eating and drinking and general merriment.

And sometimes, other relatives, the ones who can't come in to town, give you money.

Now, pretty much all my other relatives can't come in to town, given that they all live overseas. But my dad's parents did send me an email saying that they were planning on giving me $1000.

Hell yeah! A thousand dollars! Computed at ten bucks a day, that's an awful lot of days.

And so I splurged. I got this email while studying for my last final a week or so ago. I'd been studying at my favorite coffee shop for hours. When I got this email I grinned, packed up my bags, and immediately went out to the video store to get this.

http://www.amazon.com/Angel-Seasons-1-5-30-Disc-DVD/dp/B000TLTCU4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1211325652&sr=1-1

Yeah, yeah, I'm a dork. Don't mock me. I'm proud of my dorkness. And I have enjoyed owning this tv show SO MUCH.

(In related news: how do I put a hyperlink into a single word in HTML?)

Mugging: $1.00

2008-05-12T17:49:00.000-07:00

So last Saturday, after the wedding reception, I head outside and have a cigarette with the photographer's assistant -- nice girl -- and get the valet guys to bring my car around. I'm trying to meet up with the groom's undergrad friends. They went back to the hotel to post-party. The hotel is only a few blocks from the reception and I thought I'd be able to find it easily. But I quickly get lost in an unfamiliar downtown, and I realize that I'm just not going to find this place. I pull over in a parking lot.

Then a good friend calls me -- or possibly I call him -- I can't remember. He asks how the wedding was. This being the first moment that I wasn't "on" as a member of the wedding party, my subconscious chooses this moment to have a complete meltdown. The wedding was a beautiful, wonderful moment where two people I care about joined their lives together in a religious ceremony, and suddenly I find that I am screaming, sobbing into the phone, about exactly how angry I am that these two people believe in something that unites them, but it's all just a great big lie.

I, um, have issues with organized religion.

Also it was an open bar.

A black man walks up to my passenger side door. He asks if I am all right. I say yes, I'll be fine. He asks where I'm headed. I lie and say that I'm on the phone with my friend who is giving me directions to his place. He asks if I have any money. I tell the truth and say that I have no money because I just paid for valet parking at this wedding I was at.

Then he opens the passenger side door, puts his hand on my purse in the passenger seat, and says, "I'm just going to take this now."

I say, indignantly, "No, you're not!" I actually was indignant. As though I had any say in the matter.

He takes my wallet out of my purse. He's having a hard time with the latch on the wallet. I offer to help him open it, but he doesn't let me. He gets the wallet open and takes out the cash. I have all of one dollar. He says, "Girl, you broke!"

I say, "Yeah, I told you so!" Then I ask him to leave me my ID cards, at least. After all, stuff is just stuff. Replacing a driver's license and green card and social security card -- well, that is a pain in the ass.

It was about this point that a very small part in the back of my head got upset that this entire incident was perpetuating racism. I wanted to say, "Don't you realize that I'm going to be more frightened of black men now? Don't you think you have a responsibility to your race, and to our entire American culture? How dare you perpetuate this stereotype?"

I do not, of course, say any of these thoughts. My mother and I laugh, later, about how even while being robbed I cannot help but have a running social commentary.

He takes the dollar and says, "Girl, I'll be sweet to you." He puts the wallet back in the purse and puts the purse back on the seat and closes the door. Then he says, "Girl, you stop hanging out in parking lots with your doors unlocked, because some nigga's gonna mess you up." And then he walks away.

My friend has heard all of this through the phone, which has been in my lap. He, of course, has been freaking out. As I drive back to where I'm staying, he stays on the phone with me while I have my own freak-out. When I get there, I call my mother. She points out that I was mugged by the nicest mugger in Houston.

And I'm Back

2008-05-11T12:26:00.001-07:00

Loyal readers of this blog (I have loyal readers, right?) will note that I've been missing in action for over a week. Internet, you have my apologies.

There is not much I can say to excuse my absence. The truth is that a number of things happened: I had finals, I had a meltdown about finals (that was fun), and I went out of town for the weekend to be in a wedding. I will not detail how much money I spent during the last week or so but you can rest assured that IT WAS A LOT.

During the end of finals (courtesy of the meltdown) I just reverted to my old spending habits, buying food out whenever I was hungry rather than planning ahead, and of course purchasing plenty of alcohol. This past weekend, wedding expenses were abundant (note: they were all entirely worth it. The wedding was a wonderful, beautiful thing and I was honored to be a part of it).

What I have learned over the past week is that sticking to ten bucks a day is going to be HARD. There is always something you feel like you need to spend money on. There will always be the next event, the next occasion, the next outing where you tell yourself, "but this will only happen once!" Life is full of things that only happen once, and living frugally requires planning for those things and coming up with creative, low-cost ways to enjoy them.

I'm left with where to go from here. If I count all the money I did end up spending last week, I would be so far behind that I would give up in despair. In the interests of my mental health, I choose not to go the despair route. I will stick with the thirty bucks or so behind that I was when last I posted. I will start tracking and posting my spending again tomorrow. And above all, I will take the time to plan ahead and try to make this work.

Things that Don't Count

2008-05-01T12:30:00.000-07:00

I have a very conflicted view of money.

On the one hand, I want to be responsible and frugal. I want to plan ahead and look at the big picture and be able to pay off student loans very quickly (hence this whole experiment).

On the other hand, I could be hit by a bus tomorrow! And then wouldn't I feel stupid for never having bought a MacBook Air (this is the argument I used to convince myself to, in fact, buy a MacBook Air).

My point is that it's hard to find the right balance between enjoying the moment and planning for the future. This blog is all about planning for the future. But there are also going to be a few things that I'll choose to spend money on when it's time to enjoy the moment for a change. And one of them is definitely THE PLANE TICKET TO NYC THAT I JUST BOUGHT. HELL YEAH.

I have a grand total of one (count it: one) weekend between graduation and the start of bar exam classes. This is my one chance to get away, and, incidentally, see a friend that I miss quite a lot.

The plane ticket definitely doesn't count. :-D

Spending for April 30th

2008-05-01T12:22:00.001-07:00

I'm getting tired of coming up with cute names for posts, so for just the basic spending log, I'm just throwing the date up there as a title. I'll come up with cute names for posts that muse on various things related to money.

$7.33 febreeze and four packets of ramen

Febreeze is a household necessity, it really is, but gosh darn it's expensive. Anyway, I was doing well until I was finished studying for the day and I was driving home and I was so tired and...

$1.39 cheddar cheese chex mix

$21.10 four-bottle box of cabernet

$29.82 total

IT'S EXAMS AND I'M STRESSED. SO SUE ME.

So now I'm at -$34.40. Ah well. I still have plenty of food in the house (and even some chex mix left over). I only have one egg left but I'm getting pretty sick of eggs anyway. Maybe I'll use the egg to make pancakes.

Minor Spending

2008-04-29T16:01:00.000-07:00

Spending for April 29th:

$0.85 can of diet coke

Which puts me at a grand total of -14.58. I might get out of the red pretty soon :-)

I know I'm trying to break the caffeine habit, but I was soooooo tired. I don't know if it's exam stress or my new medication or what, but I'm not sleeping well at night, and today I just couldn't stop yawning.

Also I'm proud of myself for not studying at my favorite bar and thus not spending money on beer.

Success!

2008-04-29T09:08:00.000-07:00

Spending for April 28th:

$0.00

HA!

I am now at -$23.73.

Habits and Routines

2008-04-28T13:50:00.000-07:00

Where I work, parking is difficult. If you want to park for free, you have to get to work at a decent time and park about five blocks away.

This morning, I most emphatically did not get to work at a decent time. But I positively refused to pay for parking! And after a frantic search, I triumphantly found a spot. Sure, it was even farther away than usual, but who cares? It was free! (Of course, I could be taking the bus, but that's a topic for another post.)

Anyway, as I was walking to work, something very odd happened.

I passed a coffeeshop stand and thought how nice it would be to get a breakfast taco. Don't be ridiculous, I told myself. You made your breakfast. You have it in your bag with you.

Then as I passed the 7-11 I wanted a diet coke. No, I'm not drinking diet coke any more, I reminded myself. Okay then, my self replied, How about some crystal light? And about then I passed a taco stand and it piped up again, Sure you don't want a breakfast taco?

It was strange. I had this ridiculous compulsion to buy something -- anything -- it didn't really matter what. I wanted to consume, identify myself as part of the great churning rotation of the American economy. Why? What is so special about stopping off at 7-11 every morning to get a beverage? Is it that I want to prove I'm the kind of person who can afford to buy a coke every day? Who on earth would I be proving that to? Or do I just crave the stability of a settled routine?

Whatever the answer is, I will just have to psychologically get over it. Habits that cost money are simply no good.

Working On Frugality

2008-04-27T18:35:00.000-07:00

Spending for April 27th:

$0.41 another stamp

$3.38 groceries

$3.79 total

Okay, I was down by $47.52. Now I'm down by $33.73.

Now, I realize that, ideally, I shouldn't have spent any money today. But I think all this was justified.

I had to buy another stamp for graduation invitations, and as previously mentioned, I am not about to feel guilty for announcing this incredible life accomplishment. If I had Osama Bin Laden's address, I'd be spending 90 cents to deliver a crappy gold-engraved quad-fold (in two envelopes, mind you!) to a cave in Pakistan.

The groceries were way frugal. I bought a dozen eggs (on sale for $1.99 instead of $3.69 and when the hell did a dozen eggs start costing four bucks???) and a loaf of bread (on sale for $1.39 instead of $1.59). If you say that a meal can be two fried eggs on two pieces of toast -- and I, for one, think that it can -- that $3.38 gets me six meals. Dude, that's 57 cents a meal. Plus I'll still have half a loaf of bread left over. Doesn't get much better than that.

So, I may be thirty bucks in the red, but at least I'm set for the next few days. I have some canned soup and I have some pasta and frozen veggies, and I have eggs.

Let the festivities begin.

By The Numbers

2008-04-26T11:54:00.001-07:00

Okay, I've come up with this (possibly insane) ten-bucks-a-day concept. But how much money do I actually have? And how long does it have to last me?

ASSETS:

Well, there's my checking account: 1,052.52. Call it a grand.

Plus the eleven thousand dollars I got for my bar exam study loan, so that's $12,000.

And I'll get four more paychecks before I leave work, which will be 3K, for a total of $15,000.

Of course, the bar exam prep class is $2,500, leaving me $12,500.

And to be fair, I've got $300 on my credit card, so it's really $12,200. Let's just call it $12,000.

TIMELINE:

I'm planning as though I'm not going to get a job until January 2009. Obviously I hope to start making some income before that, but it's probably a good idea to plan for a worst-case scenario. Not counting the rest of April, that's eight months: exactly $1,500 per month.

BILLS:

$550 covers my rent, utilities, and internet (no cable).

$50 for gas and other car-related things.

$50 for the cell phone bill.

That's $650 per month, leaving me with $850 discretionary money per month, or just over $200 per week. That's almost $25 per day, but that doesn't allow for emergencies, or travel, or any of the hundred things that might come up! $20 per day is a little more reasonable, but hell, where's the fun in that?

Hence, ten bucks a day.

Of course, it's not going very well so far.

But at least I know how the numbers play out.

Ceremonies

2008-04-26T11:18:00.000-07:00

Spending for April 26th:

$0.86 shampoo

$19.75 cat food

$11.30 stamps

$14.61 tattoo cover-up makeup

$46.52 total

I'm now in the hole by $47.52. Holy crapola!

It may not look like it, but I actually am trying. I mean, I bought VO5 shampoo for 75 cents rather than Suave for a buck fifty. The cat food is pretty much essential -- although I'm curious now to see how long it lasts. How much is that little fucker costing me, anyway?

The rest of it is all ceremony-related. Ceremonies are unavoidable, right?

The stamps were for mailing out my graduation invitations. It's not my fault that all my relatives live in the UK and it costs 90 cents to get a letter there. You only graduate from law school once and I'm going to let the whole world know. Through the post office.

And the tattoo cover-up is for a friend's wedding. Seriously. I have a tattoo on the back of my shoulder. I deliberately thought this through before I got it, oh, six years ago. The back of the shoulder is a place that will be covered anytime I have to impress someone (like in a job interview) and will only be seen in situations where I don't have to impress anyone (like, for example, any time I'm in a bathing suit).

Except for when you are in a wedding populated by conservative republicans and the bridesmaid's dress is strapless. Yeah. Oddly enough, I didn't actually consider that particular scenario.

Anyway, I tried the tattoo cover-up makeup at the store, and it's really thick and it'll cover it up just fine. For the cost of a day-and-a-half's worth of spending money.

Can I possibly get through the rest of this week without buying anything else???

Difficulties Ahead

2008-04-26T07:33:00.000-07:00

Spending for April 25th:

1.50 breakfast burrito

1.00 can of coke zero

11.00 dinner out for friend's birthday

7.50 bottle of wine

21.00 total

I'm at -11 dollars after the first day. This is not good. Let's see...

1.50 is probably a pretty decent price for breakfast, at least a breakfast that I didn't make myself. Cooking at home would of course be cheaper. The coke... well, I'm trying to break the caffeine addiction. I lasted until 2:30 and then I caved. I won't be habitually spending money on meaningless beverages. The dinner out? I got the cheapest thing on the menu ($7), but then you add in tax and tip and a contribution for the birthday boy's dinner. The wine, obviously, I should have had the willpower to resist.

The problem is that there are several things I simply have to pay for today. Shampoo and cat food, for a start. I'm just going have to buy what I need to and make it up later in the week.

And so we begin...

2008-04-25T16:37:00.000-07:00

Today I got my bar exam study loan. This is money meant to cover the time between graduating law school and starting a job. I'm sitting here holding a check for $11,000.

Oh my god, that's eleven thousand dollars.

And it needs to last me through the rest of 2008.

Oh.

On the one hand, just exactly how spoiled am I? Entire families in the United States survive on less than 10K a year. Not well, I grant you, but this is a way of living for some people.

On the other hand, this is going to require some radical changes in how I manage my money. And they need to be changes that stick, because once I do get a job, I'm going to have to start paying back a ridiculously large amount of student loans.

Hence this blog. We're going to see precisely how difficult it would be to live on ten bucks a day of discretionary money. Not rent, utilities, internet or cell phone. Just the rest of life. Food, drinks, clothes, shampoo. That kind of stuff. I'm curious to see what will be simpler than I thought and what the difficult pitfalls are going to be (I know one already).

So far today I've spent $2.50. But it's a friend's birthday dinner tonight. I'll be back tomorrow and I'll let you know how it goes.