September Successes
My Mint.com comparison of Sept. and Aug. spending on restaurants/bars/groceries
September has been a pretty good month for my budgeting. When I moved to Washington, DC is July I knew that I would be spending a lot on getting myself set up down here. I pretty much blew through all of my savings. I spent $6,000 in July. That is… absurd. Granted, I had to buy furniture, pay for an apartment and a deposit, and splurged and bought a TV, but still, this was pretty outrageous. My jaw hit the floor when I looked back at July once August had rolled around.
Time to get it together
I knew going into August that most of my big expenditures were out of the way. I was ready to settle in. August turned out to be one weekend out on the town after another. DC makes it very easy to blow through your money in short order. As a result I spent over $600 on take out for lunch, going out to dinner, and binge drinking on expensive (and delicious) beer. I could probably count on one hand the number of times I actually cooked for myself that month. Part of the reason for this is because I live in a food desert. There isn’t a good supermarket anywhere nearby. There’s a decent corner market, but they charge $5 or more for a box of cereal and rarely have fresh fruit or vegetables worth getting ripped off for. To get around this I went to delis or salad places for lunch every day, and would order a pizza at the beginning of the week and work my way through that for dinner each night. Classy, right? Well, this was not only expensive but totally unhealthy. So for September I set out to change this entirely. I needed to spend less, eat better, and start getting in better shape. Basically, I needed to change my lifestyle.
Where to start
I decided to start with the obviously easy to fix issue: what I was doing for dinner. Cutting out the pizza was an easy fix. I replaced the weekly pizza and take out with a box of Grapenuts. For one thing, I fucking love Grapenuts. Talk about getting some bang for your buck, a box of that will last awhile, even if it does cost $5 from the corner store, I’m still eating better in the long run and saving a ton of money. Is it an ideal dinner? Hell no. But it’s a start until I can figure out the grocery situation. I also ordered 6 canisters of sugar free Carnation Instant Breakfast. In general, I skip breakfast because I refuse to wake up earlier and make something to eat. Because of that, I’m starving by the time lunch rolls around, and I haven’t jump started my metabolism. This is a great way to get your day going, and it keeps me from eating my hand and/or a foot long sub from Subway. This greatly cut back on what I’m buying for lunch, saving me more money and further improving my diet.
The hardest but most effective part
I’m never that good at saying no to people. So when an opportunity to go out with friends comes up after a long weekend, I always want to say yes. But looking at my past expenses I know this isn’t always realistically possible. In order to save I need to cut back in this area. I’ve turned down several gatherings that I know I’d spend money at in favor of just a few nights here and there. Saying no and staying home still sucks, but I’ve taken that time and put it to use being productive by setting up this blog, which has turned out to be fun and a worthy endeavor, I think.
The bottom line
At the end of the day, I’ve still managed to save over $400 in this one spending category over last month. Across the spectrum I’ve spent over $1,000 less than last month. This has allowed me to put $300 into my savings account, pay off an additional $500 on my credit card, and still have some left over to roll into next month. At this rate, I’ll have my credit card paid off in 8 months, and over $1500 by the start of the new year between my savings and emergency fund. It may take some time, but I’m on my way to actually making some money.
