And I'm Back

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.