No Spend January Days 21 & 22

It's been a bad couple of days for spending...

Thursday I worked, came home and ate something so I would be less tempted to get food at happy hour. I went to happy hour at Rock Bottom Brewery, had two beers (three bucks each) and then ordered a half-price appetizer which came out to around four dollars. I put in $12, leaving the restaurant feeling okay about only going two dollars over what I had planned and having a great time with my old high school friends.

Then I got to the parking structure and had to pay $5 for parking. They validated two hours, but I was there a third hour. Crap.

But, oh well, right? I ended Thursday with $11.59.

Then Friday after work I came home exhausted. I am pretty much out of food, unless I wanted ramen for dinner. Ramen does not fill you up, for the record. What I should have done is gone to the store, which I would not have counted against myself, since I need more food. But at work, people were talking about different pizza places and it sounded good and I didn't want to drive anywhere in the rain, so I caved. I ordered a pizza from Papa John's. Including delivery and tip I put $15.32 on my debit card.

Which leaves me, um, with negative $3.73.  Crap.

I'm annoyed with myself because it wasn't a social event, it was just laziness. Granted, I am eating the pizza for three meals and it was delicious, but still. UGH! I am going to list a few more items on amazon/ebay and see if I can recoup that money, but I am running out of things I am willing to get rid of. And there are nine days left in the month.

So, I guess the lesson is two fold: One, have more willpower. Two, when I make my budget, I need to plan for things like this and give myself a cushion. The parking situation is a good example of an unplanned for expense causing problems.

Now, if I wanted to justify things, I could add the grocery money I spent a few weeks ago back into my balance. Because I decided groceries are allowed, but I wanted to not be so free with the extra $80 I got from cat-sitting. I may end up doing that, but I would have liked to make it through the month without having to get sneaky. We shall see.

On the plus side, I had another No Drive Day on Friday (another perk of the pizza delivery). That puts me up to five days so far. I would like to have two more this month, which I think is do-able.

Okay, I'm signing off to go not spend money and look for spare change. Over and out.

29.59