Help! I can’t stop spending money!

If any of you have noticed a rather high-pitched screech­ing sound ema­nat­ing from the Mid­west, it’s prob­a­bly my wal­let com­plain­ing about all the times I’ve used it already this month.

I’ve been on a seri­ous spend­ing spree the last few weeks, and unlike most 25-year-old women, I’m not hap­py about it. Grant­ed, that may have some­thing to do with the fact I’m not buy­ing fun stuff like Guc­ci purs­es or Louboutin shoes. Instead, I’m buy­ing bor­ing stuff like gro­ceries, rent and flights.

I want to say a few things before I go over just what I’ve been drop­pin some seri­ous dough on the last 2 weeks:

1. I’m incred­i­bly grate­ful I have a great job that allows to spend all this money.
2. I’m not com­plain­ing since I need all this stuff. I’m more com­ment­ing on the tim­ing of why does all this have to hit at the exact same time FOR GOODNESS SAKES?
3. While I’m not a huge advo­cate of fru­gal­i­ty, I real­ize it behooves me to not spend a lot of mon­ey on my path to FI. You can read more about my stance on fru­gal­ness in my post FI and Fru­gal­i­ty.
4. While spend­ing the mon­ey now isn’t fun, some of the things I am buy­ing will be fun when they even­tu­al­ly come around.

What Have I Been Buying!?!

Rent: $1087
Trav­el: $754.12
Car­di­nals tick­ets: $240
Tax­es: $200
Food: $163.36 ($79.72 in April)
Gro­ceries: $131.52
Soc­cer Fee: $82.50
Pets: $81.52
Inter­net: $67.90
Gift: $50
Fab­ric: $37.16
Gas: $21.12
CC Fee: $3.68

Total: $2919.88
HOLY CRAP. I’ve spent almost $3000 in two weeks!! No won­der my wal­let is mak­ing hideous screech­ing noises.

“well, Gwen.… you’ve spent a lot the last 14 days. What are you going to do about it?”

Now that I have enough food to make it through a nuclear apoc­a­lypse, I’m going to eat only that stuff and try my hard­est not to go out to eat. My goal is to not eat any food I haven’t pre­pared until the week­end of the 16^th & 17^th. I’ll be home to attend a bach­e­lor par­ty and a birth­day par­ty for my friend’s daugh­ter. That will entail buy­ing gas and some food, although not much since I’m stay­ing with my par­ents and the birth­day par­ty is bring your own main course.

Then, I don’t have any­thing planned until April 28^th- May 1^st. I’ll be head­ing a few hours east to attend meet­ings at Mega­Corp head­quar­ters. While there, I’ll need a few meals and I’ll be social­iz­ing with friends, so that’s a few drinks and maybe some food. After the work trip is over, I’ll be head­ed to Oma­ha for the Annu­al Berk­shire Hath­away Investor’s Meet­ing. That will entail a hotel room, food, drinks and the fee for the “Invest in Your­self” 5k I’m doing with Mr. 1500 and Mrs. PoP. Since I’m hang­ing out with fel­low blog­gers, I con­sid­er that to be mon­ey well spent.

I think I’m going to have to turn down some poten­tial­ly fun activ­i­ties though. I could go to a quilt retreat the week­end of the 22^nd and I could also buy tick­ets to go see my favorite coun­try singer in con­cert. When I think of all the fun I’d have, I just remind myself I’d rather be retired ear­li­er than have fun and have to work longer.

It’s cer­tain­ly dif­fi­cult to look at my bud­get and see I’ve already spent 80% of April’s mon­ey. Eeks! Hope­ful­ly I’ve already bought most of what I need and can take it eas­i­er until I hit all those week­end activ­i­ties. Wish me luck!

 

Have you had a month where you had to spend a lot? How did you cope?