Living Paycheck to Paycheck

Ten points to anyone who catches the title reference.

My cousin is getting married on July 5th which is great.  She’s three years older than me and we get along very well when we see each other, which isn’t often since we have our own lives and she lives about an hour from me.  Her bachelorette party will be this Saturday night in DC and I’m sort of ambivalent about going.

I WANT to hang out with her for sure.  Her younger sister, three years younger than me, is her maid of honor and planning this thing.  She and I are less close.  And since she wasn’t at the bride’s Christmas party in December, I haven’t seen her since…gosh, for 2-3 years.

Anyway, this bachelorette party.  The plan is to meet at a hotel at 6pm and get on a Girls’ Night Out bus at 8:30.  Then we’ll go out to clubs and things and get back to the hotel at 3am.  The snag in these plans for me (besides that I can barely keep my eyes open at 12, nevertheless 3am!) is at 7pm there will be a “male dancer”.  Seriously?  Do women really still do this?  Why?  What is hot or sexy about a man who is willing to share his wares with a bunch of strangers?  Does he enjoy doing this?  Does he respect himself?  Does he brag about his awesome job to his parents, grandparents, etc.?

Anyway, I would be furious with B if he attended something where there’d be a female dancer because I do consider it to be a form of cheating, so I’m not going to attend that part of the “entertainment”.  Even if I didn’t mind a g-stringed guy shaking his thing in my face, it is absoluting revolting to me to stick my hard-earned dollars down his underwear.  I’m already going to be shelling out my share for the night AND probably having drinks in DC (expensive!!!) and I don’t have any to spare for…that.

To end, I’ll say that I have no problem with strippers in general.  If people make a choice to do it, that’s their business and up to them.  I do think it’s sad when men and women in committed relationships think it’s fun to stick their hands in another person’s underwear (best case scenario), but if the significant other is fine with it, so am I.  B and I talked long ago about how much it would upset me if he went to a strip club or a bachelor party with something like that and he confirmed that he wouldn’t really like it if I was the one seeing the entertainment, so I think that we’re good there.

He’s also insisted that he will meet me in DC when I’m ready to go home so that I won’t have to ride the Metro alone.  Part of me wants to insist right back that I’ll be fine, but the bigger part of me recognizes that this is much safer, if inconvenient to him, and I love him for looking out for me.

I didn’t keep it below $60, but I gave myself some great excuses as to why not.

I didn’t thaw the shrimp correctly and had to trash the entire bag.  I was counting on it being a substantial part of the food that I was offering, so I decided to get more food.  I also had to run out and get more things for the gin bucket.  One of these gin buckets costs almost exactly $10.00 and it was almost gone with only four or five of the guests there, so I went and got more.  My grand total came to $78, rounded to the nearest dollar.  Since the shrimp cost $10-12 to begin with, I added that to the original $60, so I came quite close.  I also had almost a full case of beer left over, a fair amount of boxed wine, and I received three bottles of wine as presents which I was not expecting, so I feel like I came out ahead.

Soon I will come out with a list of goals to help me to avoid spending more money.  One of my goals is to post each day on how much money I spend so that I can see what I’m buying.  I think that I will start this on 1 May, so that I can look at it as a month-by-month thing.

Today I will finish my taxes; when I started them last week, TurboTax showed me how much I could contribute to an IRA and what my tax refund would turn out to be.  I need to enter some new documents that I found first to see how it’s changed, but last week it looked like I could contribute over $1000 and still get $1500 back.  I can’t wait to get this money back, especially since it should bump up my net worth.

My party is tomorrow and I’m trying to combat my natural tendency to freak out.  I’m a fairly lazy person, but an obsessive list-maker, so I have a grocery list, a party grocery list, a “things to do” list (organized by rooms in my apartment), and not a thing crossed off of any of them.

On Tuesday (my actual birthday), I went out to dinner with my parents and took home leftovers.  I ate some for dinner last night and I had one of the rolls for breakfast this morning.  Anytime I’m eating something I didn’t pay for versus something I did, I’m saving money!  My parents are on a diet, so I was able to bring home four bags of potato chips, a jar of salsa, and a jar of cocktail sauce, which will save me more than $15.  One of the bags is already gone, though, because two of my best friends were over last night and I had to feed them something; I chose the smallest of the bags.

My best friend asked what I’d like as a birthday present, if she could get me anything for the party.  I asked for a case of beer.  I told her that it didn’t even have to be “good” beer.

I have about 18 confirmed people and 3 or 4 people that are probably coming, too, so it won’t be a crazy party or anything.  The guests are going to range in age from 23-26, so there WILL be beer pong, more than half of a box of wine, part of a bottle of wine, and a gin bucket.  I’m going with the cheapest gin available, no matter the brand.  I’m getting generic ginger ale and a generic can of lemonade to go with it.

I’m worried about keeping the purchases to under $60. 

This is where I find myself unable to budget effectively.  I received a $100 check from my grandparents so in my mind I’m thinking, “Well, it’s okay if I go over $60 because I have that other money to fall back on.”  I know that the extra money should be put into savings to pay for necessities, but it’s difficult to hold myself back.  I’m not good at setting limits on myself and it amazes me how well other people accomplish it.

Because one of my goals in life is to be a good hostess (i.e., welcoming to guests, making sure they have everything they need to have a good time), I hate asking people to bring anything; if they volunteer, I’ll suggest something, but I feel like a bad hostess if I invite someone to my home and am unable to cater to their needs.  I’m going to try to combat that feeling and ask one friend to supply the gin and my boyfriend to get a case of beer.  I hate doing that because he’s as bad off as me financially for this month.  Many of my friends will call tomorrow afternoon to ask if they can bring anything and I’ll use that time to request more 12 packs.  Hopefully I can keep these costs down!