Minor Spending

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!

Spending for April 28th:

$0.00

HA!

I am now at -$23.73.

Habits and Routines

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

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

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

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

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...

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.