My Non-Post Post
Later today I might post my current expenses for the month, but right now I’m super tired…even after one Red Bull! Luckily, I have another one in a desk drawer, so maybe I’ll have it, too.
As an update to my last post, R got sick, so the movie was canceled (even though I wan’t going anyway), and she bowed out of the the Friday night dancing (making it easier for me, too). As far as the weekend? I’m at B’s on Saturday and I don’t know the plan for Sunday yet. Maybe we’ll see my family? No idea. We’ll see them on Thursday for Thanksgiving, regardless.
Finances-wise, remember the coat that I ordered from Victoria’s Secret? Well, I had an e-mail saying that the coat was discontinued, but they still sent the lip gloss and the free tote bag. I went on the site and found out that I could still get it in a size 6 (rather than a 6Tall), so I reordered it with the same lip gloss / tote bag deal. I really like the tote bag, too! It only has one inside pocket and one outside pocket, but it’s still pretty cool. Not $75 cool…and probably not something that I would have chosen for myself, but I like it. Unfortunately, I bet my mom wouldn’t like it and I was thinking of giving her the second one at Christmas. Maybe another friend. This also solves something for me: I didn’t have a black bag that I could use for work. I had a small bag that just looks beaten up and gross, and a large bag that I used when I was a teacher (but is far too big for this job where I never bring work home). This new tote bag is bigger than I would have preferred, but it’ll be great on days when I’m bringing more for lunch than usual, or want to carry a couple books around. Yay!
My coat should be arriving in less than two weeks! I no longer have to feel like a bum at Christmas!
My Latest Impulse Purchase
Okay, this isn’t completely impulsive. For a few weeks now I’ve been searching online (and in stores the one day I went to a mall) for a new winter coat. There’s nothing wrong with my black peacoat except that it doesn’t go with any of my brown pants / skirts and it’s not dressy enough for winter parties and things or Christmas, etc. I really wanted an off-white, knee-length coat.
I found one that I liked a lot at J.Crew online, but it was far too expensive for me. Around $280 or so. Everywhere else I searched just didn’t have what I was looking for. Then last night, R told me that I should look at Victoria’s Secret because she’d gotten a coat from there recently for about $100. Well, that sold me enough to look!
Look I did. Finally I found this coat and decided to order it (even though it’s backordered for another couple of weeks):
Cute, huh? It was listed as $99, but Victoria’s Secret is awesome in that they let you type in three coupon codes at checkout. So the first thing I did was go to ebates.com and saw that I could get 4% cashback on whatever I spent. Sweet. The next thing I did was pick out a lip gloss ($7) to make my subtotal $106, so I could qualify for a free shipping code.
I used three codes:
1. FA813573 For $10 off (using the Victoria’s Secret Angel Credit Card)
2. SHPSAVE For free shipping on purchases of $100 or more
3. FA813441For a free tote bag with a purchase of $75 or more (Tote bag value? $75.00, according to them)
This brought my total to $100.80. But since I went through ebates, I should be getting $4.03 back to make this purchase (of coat, lip gloss, and tote bag) $96.77.
R said that she’d buy the lip gloss off of me, but I might wind up giving it to her as part of a Christmas gift. I don’t know what I’ll do with the tote until it gets here. I’ll either keep it, give it as a gift, or sell it.
So I’m pretty happy with the purchase, even if I REALLY shouldn’t be buying anything right now. I’m hoping that this will curtail some of my purchasing for the rest of the month. Last week I bought a black flannel dress from J.Crew that needs to be altered. It’s just a little too big in the bust area. Otherwise, this is a perfect dress for work, church, and winter parties…all for $85 (including taxes and shipping, but not counting what it’ll cost for tailoring). On Monday afternoon I bought a pair of chrome (?) flats from Gap on the $50 gift card I got from Mypoints.com back in August / September. I NEEDED shoes like this, though I could have found them for less than $41. On the other hand, it was still a free gift card, so money didn’t come out of my account for it at least.
Anyway, there you go. I’ve decided that this was a smart purchase because I didn’t have any feelings of buyer’s remorse as soon as I submitted the order like I sometimes do.
My Expenses, 30 October 2008
Up-to-Date Expenses:
Gas x 7: $299.00
Car Tax and Decal fee: $89.38
Bank fee: $25.00
Maryland Renaissance Festival: $48
Parking: $1.50
EZPass x 4: $140
Car Loan: $88.71
Student Loan: $174.01
Church/Charity: $130.00
Groceries: $15.42
Gas bill: $25.28
Internet: $44.99
Panera: $6.55
Verizon: $59.52
Power: $31.73
Baptism Gift: $13.18
Metro Pass: $10.00
Soda at MCM: $2.00
Rent/Water/Fees/Cable: $1055.83
Dinner at RC’s house: $5.00
Income: $2775.60
Expenses: $2265.10
Net Effect: $510.50
I also bought a few things at CVS for B before his marathon, but I paid cash and I don’t remember how much it was. It was less than $15, though; I know THAT. I don’t have the receipt in my purse, so I’m going to have to look at home for it. I hope that B didn’t throw it out or take it with him because there were some Extra Care Bucks on it and I need toothpaste!
Also, I’ve been looking online for clothing and shoes like crazy. I found two dresses for $22 each that I was going to buy from New York & Company, but a few hours (HOURS) after I saw them online, I checked again (so I could get R’s opinion) and they were already gone! I was so bummed. I’m still bummed, actually. Back to online window shopping!
My Wardrobe
After reading Finance Girl’s post this morning on “Must Have” items for your wardrobe, I started thinking about all the things that I “need” to buy.
Since I’ve lost weight, two pairs of pants that I bought back in November/December do not fit anymore. They’re entirely too big, but I still wear them because I have so few things that fit now, especially since it’s started getting cold here and I can’t wear my cropped pants or my single work skirt without freezing.
I also don’t have a light jacket. I have a heavy sweater, but it won’t keep me warm in weather below 50 degrees. I need something that’ll work for fall and spring when I don’t want to pull out the heavy winter coat.
Shoes are a big thing. I wear three pairs of shoes to work; gold flats, brown flats, and cream/brown heels. The heels I only wear once or twice a month because they’re open-toed and they pinch the heck out of my toes. By the time I walk several minutes downhill to get to my car in the afternoons, my feet are screaming to be free. The brown flats I only wear with my brown pants, my brown skirt, or a pink/brown dress that I have (but rarely wear as it’s a couple inches shorter than I’d like), so that averages to 3-6 times a month. Otherwise I wear my gold shoes. I adore gold flats because I can wear them with navy blue, brown, and black, but mine are falling apart. It’s getting embarrassing. I know that I should buy new shoes, but I just never go shopping anymore because I don’t want to spend any money. It’s also because I don’t know what to buy first. Do I go with shoes, pants, jacket, or what? I need more than just one more pair of shoes, too. I need heels that don’t make me want to die after wearing them for eight hours. I have a ton of shoes, but most of them are flipflops, dressy shoes that are inappropriate for work (freaking bridesmaid shoes), or they don’t fit anymore…or never fit well.
So here is a short list of the things that I’d say that I want to get for this fall/winter:
2 pairs of winter work pants
1-2 winter dresses, appropriate for work/church/weekend
1 fall coat/jacket (goes with black or brown pants)
1 fall/winter skirt
1 pair of winter work shoes, appropriate for black or gray pants
1 purse/satchel bag that goes with black, gray, blue, or brown pants/skirts
I’d say that even with discounts, all of this stuff together would be over $300. I currently have a $50 gift card to Gap (remember those pants I wanted back in August? They sold out before I could get them), and money leftover on giftcards to Kohl’s and Macy’s. I also have not bought any clothing items for myself since the end of June. For the year, I’ve spent $274.22 on clothing/shoes/accessories. So that’s averaging to almost $28/month (I round up) even though in my mind I usually budget for $35-40/month for these things. It’s one of the few categories that I haven’t really gone over in this year. I need to suck it up and buy a couple things, I think, hopefully using the giftcards to make it hurt a little less.
Before I go shopping, though, in two weeks my friend H is hosting a clothing swap party! I know that I have a bunch of things that I no longer want/wear that someone else might like. I’ll go with my list in hand and see what I can get to fill in my wardrobe blanks. After that I’ll look at shopping for the things that I still want/need.
My Jeans, Revisited
Ahh! They didn’t have a single pair of the jeans left at Pentagon City Mall on Friday! B and I were going to go to a different mall yesterday morning after Mass, but it sort of escaped me and I really couldn’t focus on anything but the Redskins-Dallas game (WOOHOO, Redskins!!!!!!!!!!) anyway. Maybe I’ll go today. If they don’t have them at Dulles Town Centre, I’m going to assume that they’re not available anywhere near me and either choose something else or keep the gift card until Christmas when I can maybe buy a couple gifts from there. I generally get my two brothers some sort of sweater or dressy sweatshirt anyway…also, my cousin has two sons (2 and 7 weeks) that I could get something for at Baby Gap. I’ll be really bummed, though, if I can’t get the jeans. That was the first time that I was really excited about a piece of clothing in a long time, and the only time I’ve planned so far in advance to get them.
Well, you live and learn.
My Jeans?
So now that I’ve lost the weight that I was going for, I’m ready to buy those jeans that I mentioned back in August. At the time, they were $59.99 and I was waiting on a $50 giftcard to Gap from Mypoints.com. I finally got the giftcard, but I’ve been putting off going until the weight was gone.
I mentioned this to R on Wednesday night and how I’m ready! She told me that when she was at the mall recently the pants were on sale ($41.99, I think), but that they might not have my size!! Crud. I went online today and they don’t have the pants in size 6 (the size that I think I will be), so I’m hoping they’ll have them at Pentagon City Mall when I go there after work to pick up B from the Metro. He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s going shopping with me!
So I’m crossing my fingers that the jeans will be in my size there and that they’ll actually look good on me when (if) I try them on. And it’ll be much better to have waited if I can still get them and actually have a few bucks left on the card rather than paying extra on top of it.
Anyway, my mahi mahi turned out well on Wednesday and I have enough left over for three meals, and I have lots of the rice I made left. I’ve made a menu plan for October and plan to spend very little money on food, so we’ll see how that goes.
My Scam?
Right now I’m trying to think of ways to make more money and/or save more money to pay down my debts. I really don’t want to get a second job. I’m out of the house from 6:45am-5:05pm every workday…at least. That’s assuming that I don’t run any errands, go see friends, etc. which I do probably 3-4 days of the week.
Another job would ruin one of the things that I like best about my current job: free evenings. When I was a teacher, I constantly brought work home and the work never went away…more just piled on. I love that once I walk out the door at 4pm, I don’t have to think about work until I walk back in at 8am…although I usually get to work about fifteen minutes early. Even so, the evenings are my chance to relax, especially the evenings when I’m by myself and no one will judge me for watching reruns of Reba, Still Standing, or 8 Simple Rules.
I e-mailed my dad about taking on a contract type job at his small business, doing minor bookkeeping like I usually do every year. Because I created an entire spreadsheet to do all the adding/subtracting for me last year, this year I’ll have to do basic math and then plugging the numbers in. If all their credit card statements, bank statements, and payroll statements are in order (which they never ARE because my mom is the office manager and she’s…forgetful?) I estimate it will take me approximately twelve hours to complete. If I plan these on afternoons after work, I can get a free meal at home AND save some gas by not driving during the high traffic time. We’ll see what he says.
Another way I want to save (scam?) money is to go outlet shopping with my mom (and dad?) when we’re at the beach in a week. I figure that I can get them to buy clothes/shoes for me, saving me some money. 
Is this horrible? Though I’d maybe like to lose three more pounds, I’ve already lost enough that I’ve gone down a bra size (because THAT’S where I want to lose weight! *Fumes*) so I’m going to need a couple new ones. My favorite work shoes are falling apart, so I’ll need a new pair so that I don’t look like a vagabond. These are just a few purchases that I’ll be forced to make soon, so I’d prefer if I didn’t have to shell out my own money.
I was hoping to get to a Redskins game this season, but I think it’s just too expensive for me right now. Bummer. I’m not saving money by not going, though; I’m just not spending it on THAT.
So mostly my ways to earn/save money are to get money/material goods from my parents. I’m a terrible daughter.
My Unnecessary Spending
I’ve been pretty good about not buying random extra things for myself for several months. My mom bought me a bunch of clothes (with Dad’s money) back at the beginning of May, so I haven’t felt the need to spend.
Until the last couple of weeks. I finally got my free new phone from Verizon, an LG Black Cherry, but they know what they’re doing with the extras. I bought three new ringtones (my last phone had one that I purchased), signed up for the monthly insurance (even though I’ve had a cell phone in one form or another for over five years and never needed a replacement, something niggled at me that I should be safer than sorrier), and…alas…signed up for the VZ Navigator for $9.99/mo.
I love it. Love, love, love it. I’ve been wanting a gps for a long time because I am AWFUL when it comes to following directions. I get lost constantly; I have zero sense of direction. I don’t have the money to spend on a normal gps system at all, even though I wouldn’t have the monthly payments, and I decided that I NEEDED this service immediately over the weekend when B and I were stuck in traffic in Connecticut on our way back from spending time with his family. It was fine except that B hated the gps voice and made me turn it off after yelling at me (which he NEVER does) when I didn’t want to. We took the route he wanted and he groaned when we saw more traffic. I decided not to say, “Oh, if only we had a device that would have warned us about the traffic and taken us another way,” but I wanted to. Shortly after B apologized nicely for yelling and I told him what I’d wanted to say–he said that it was a good thing that I didn’t then, but it was funny now.
Anyway. I’m spending a lot on those unnecessary things and now I have a new expense. The girls are dressing up for the bachelorette party on Saturday night and I had no idea what to wear! I gchatted my pal, L, a party gal and asked her what I should wear. She instructed me to go to Forever 21 and get a summer dress for $20, or to go to her closet because she has 80 of them (probably not a huge exaggeration). She and I are not the same size, or even close enough to it for me to borrow her stuff, so I’m going to go to Forever 21 after work and see if I can find anything that works with what dressy shoes I have currently.
So, another expense. I saw some dresses that I liked on the website, and I hope that they’re in the store in my size when I go there…the most expensive was less than $25, so I don’t mind too much the spending. I have two weddings to go to in August and I bet I can wear the dress to the one not associated with this bachelorette party, as well as to Mass throughout the summer, and to the beach in July/August.
*Crossing fingers that I find something I like!*
My Smart Shopping
Two days ago I stopped by the grocery store to pick up a gallon of milk–only milk. I was not going to walk down any other aisles. Giant Foods is pretty smart, though, or at least the one by my apartment is; they have the clearance bins right by the dairy. I happened to glance down and see the brand of hair dye that I normally use, Clariol Hydrience.
My best friend dyed my hair last week and I had to go with a different, cheaper brand because my brand wasn’t there. The time she dyed my hair before that, back in February, I think, the dye I got was “discontinued”, but I thought that they meant only that color, since it was the only one marked down. So when I went last week and didn’t see Hydrience, I figured that they must have discontinued it all.
Apparently they have, but there were still boxes leftover in the clearance bin. Since college, I have alternated between three shades (all dark brown) mostly to cover gray (yep, 25 years old and already going gray) and to keep my hair shining. None of those shades were there, but several boxes of a shade just a little bit lighter were, so I picked up three boxes for $2.30/each. Three boxes will only get me through one hair dyeing experience (my hair is VERY thick and fairly long), but it’s better than spending between $10-$25 every few months.
So I now have the three boxes waiting for later this summer. I may scope out the local drugstores to see if they have any deals, too.
My Mom’s Personal Shopper
On Saturday morning I closed out my Bank of America savings account that generated almost no interest for me. I’m keeping that money in my checking until I pay off this month’s credit card bill and my rent due 1 May. Because my mom’s name was also on the account, I wrongly assumed that she had to go with me. It turned out that she didn’t, but it still worked out well for me because we went shopping afterwards.
Both of my parents hate clothes shopping. My dad dislikes the hassle of going somewhere where other people are waiting to annoy him by shopping near him. My mom dislikes shopping because she can never find anything that fits (more on this) and when she comes home with something, it’s usually twenty years too old for her or twenty years too young and my dad is not shy about telling her so.
My mom said that if I came shopping with her, Dad said that she could buy me “something”. “One thing or lots of things?” I asked. She confirmed that she could buy me whatever I wanted (within reason), so I jumped at the chance. I consider that any clothes they buy for me on an outing like this is actually payment for being a personal shopper. It didn’t take too long to find what my dad wanted: two pairs of pants and a couple button-down, short-sleeved shirts…except he’s particular on colors and they had only one shirt that I deemed acceptable. This is why my dad likes for me to go: I’m not going to let my mom buy him shirts that he won’t like just so that she can say that they didn’t have anything better. The rule is not to buy unless you really like it / will wear it a lot, etc.
I don’t know why my mom has horrible taste in clothes or where she got it from. Firstly, she wears a petite size and this particular department store had a reasonable, but not extensive section. She told me her size and we found a bunch of things for her to try on–nothing fit, but one shirt.
“Well, I’m just going to put all this back and go to Penney’s,” she said when I insisted that she try on everything again in a larger size. I responded that she’d have the same problem at Penney’s and I wasn’t going to spend another two hours helping her find too-small clothes to try on and nix in the end. We ended up finding a few of the things she tried on in her true size and she bought those. I felt bad that I didn’t sound more understanding. I do understand how hard it is to shop for clothes because you’re too big for the ones that you have; I don’t understand being okay with looking like crap until you can fit into your smaller size again. My mom actually tried on a pair of skintight khakis and told me that they fit…convincing her that they didn’t is what earned me the expensive sweater I got!
All in all, I picked up a summer sweater, blouse, pair of brown flats, a dress, a couple summer nightgowns, and a few pairs of underwear. I put away two skirts, even though Mom said I should get them, because I thought that she was spending too much on me (everything was on sale, though!) and the skirts are the kind that flare out at the hip, making a woman with hips look even hippier…and I am a woman with hips.
If I’d known that my dad was seriously okay with all the money spent, I could have gotten free gas and maybe a new purse, too, but all in all, I did all right. This will help me be less tempted to spend my own money, too. I hope.
