Extreme NoSpendRemember how I did NoSpend November last year? Well this year I decided to try it in December. There are a couple of reasons for this shift. First of all I had a vacation planned already for November so I didn't want to skimp on it since vacations for me are so rare. The other reason is that while last November was difficult (primarily because of football season) it wasn't as big a stretch to pull off. Christmas is a big spending time and I found that instead of really saving on holiday spending, it could have been differed. So is it really no spend? Tough call. So in that spirit I modified one rule from 09. No Christmas stockpiling.
No Change November sprung as a result of things being moved to December. I can now compare it to December as well as last November. I also get a chance to see if I am able to track spending when it is happening all the time. Lets see how it all goes! Also of note, I am changing how I list acquired and consumed. If I acquired a cookie and ate it all in the same day, it will only be listed in consumed. Acquired will only be present for things that make it to the end of the day. The exception to this is cashflow. [If you want to see them you can display the complete rules here]
Welcome once again to visitors from Budgets Are Sexy! And thanks to J Monee to posting my story
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Cash: $86.75 |
Day 21: Feeling So-so
I finally cashed a medical reimbursement check today. I don't know what my deal is but definitely goes to show that I am not good at using what I've got. I think that the check came last Thursday but why I couldn't put it in the bank until today is beyond me. It was such a non event for me that it threw me when I was counting up my money for this post. I was freaking out trying to sort out where this $30 came from. I checked all my teeth and they were still there, I've not received any cash in Christmas cards and there's been no citing of stray dough lying around. I think part of what made this awkward is that I've been making purchase that require a card. I ordered some presents online and I paid to ship some presents today. Also there's been a couple of situations where I've deposited checks at the ATM and couldn't get the exact amount out of the machine. In return I've just taken the money out of my pocket and stuck it out of the way. It's very hard to do this way. It would be very easy to accidentally spend some of this encumbered money.
Lunch was on my own because John had planned on going with me but had car trouble. The evening was filled with selling pies, shipping out presents, folding laundry, a visit from Melissa (with peppermint loaf), and watching shows online. This is the point where it starts getting hard. I'm in a mind set of 'you can't do anything' and it can really get you down. It gets to be exhausting to be creative with food, entertainment and presents. I just want to go online and order a bunch of stuff, pick up gift cards, order carry out. I can, but I can't. Lunch was tough. I sat in the restaurant waiting and trying to decide if I should let myself eat out when the whole point of the meal was to talk to John. Like November, December has a holiday and time with my family. As far as not spending goes it's helpful but it's even more helpful to my state of mind. Thanksgiving and Christmas both hit me at about the difficult '70% done' hump. Some might say it's cheating, but if you think about it, think of all that I need to spend on gas and presents. Getting a worry free meals out of it is reasonable. And I it's not like my family wouldn't feed me on a regular month should I go visit. I don't mean to be a downer, I promise I'm ok 
but I just want to share what it's really like to go through all this.
P.S. I'll tell you about the interview tomorrow.
Inventory
Acquired: $75, interview, peppermint loaf
Consumed: $23.50, lunch, 5 pies, presents shipped
Daily cash values:
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