7-day MCOL money diary

[Deleted]

Not putting our income or all our fixed expenses here. Our biggest fixed expenses are ~$1625 for rent (varies based on electric usage but that covers a large centrally located two-bedroom apartment, parking, heat, and electric), $1375 for student loans, and starting in December $1495 for infant daycare. We pay about $375 total for all at-home entertainment and connectivity - cell phones, cable/internet, Spotify, HBO Go, Netflix, New York Times, Washington Post. Car payment is only $125, with 11 months left. Renters, auto, life insurance is about $125. Church pledge is $125; other charity comes out via payroll deduction so we don't even see it. And we give my ILs $100/month to hire a housecleaner. So yeah, it's the SLs that are serious buzzkills.

Friday 4/14
$561.75 - paid on the Amex to cover hotel, rental car, and meals from previous weekend's trip for friend's wedding and visiting family
$15.79 - corner store for snacks and toilet paper
$32.25 - Whole Foods (but used a gift card - we have a ton of these we got during H's hospital stay, which has helped because he's on STD right now and earning 60 percent of his usual salary)
(I'm not counting the $8.25 for laundry because I have $20 of each paycheck deposited into a separate account and I withdraw that in quarters)
We ate all our meals at home

Saturday 4/15
$23.56 - gas for the car
$4.40 - Starbucksmocha because I had an early meeting at church (using a gift card)
Birthday party - we didn't spend anything, but we took a gift that was approximately $30 (purchased with an Amazon gift card)
$7.57 - Starbucks for H and I because we needed to kill time before the party (used GC)
$15.69 - H's prescriptions (this will be reimbursed by FSA funds although we will probably max them out soon)
$105.80 - Whole Foods for groceries (gift cards)
$12.63 - regular grocery store
$31.86 - Honeybaked ham (we wound up getting a ton out of this: six servings [3 nights] of dinner and 1 lunch, plus we now have in the freezer two more lunch or dinner servings of sliced ham, four breakfast servings of diced ham, and a ham hock I'll use to make red beans and rice)
$18.56 - Amazon for 36 pounds of cat litter
$46ish - Amazon for a Brita dispenser and filters because H needs distilled water for his new CPAP (used a gift card)
Meals were at home/at party, but full disclosure, dinner was frozen pizza and mozzarella sticks we bought on our WF run

Sunday 4/16
$73.91 - Dr. Fosters and Smith for our cats' bougie prescription food. Nothing else. Went to church but paid my monthly pledge at the beginning of the month and hung out at home, ate all meals at home - dinner was Honeybaked ham, scalloped potatoes, and braised green beans with lemon cake and strawberries for dessert

Monday 4/18
I thought this was going to be a $0 day, but we spent $40.09 at CVS (allergy meds for H, sleep meds for me, a Reese's PB egg for each of us) and $6.01 at the corner store for ice and popsicles. We don't have an ice maker, and I go through enough ice that I prefer to pay a few bucks a week then to constantly fill ice trays.
All meals were at home - dinner was pasta with Italian sausage and roasted veggies, lemon cake and strawberries for dessert

Tuesday 4/19
$8.38 - Qdoba. I've given up on bringing my lunch to work because I only go to the office 2 days/week. Took my own water bottle.
$31.10 - for Enterprise to ship my sunglasses back to me. Annoying, but cheaper than new sunglasses (prescription) and they never did charge me for returning the car with a little less than half a tank of gas. So I declare this a win.
$1.79 - corner store for tea bags for H to make iced tea

Wednesday 4/20
$210.45 - 2 concert tickets in July for Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, and a bunch of others
$13 - noodle bowl, extra egg roll, and soda at Vietnamese place near the office. I usually spend $9.02 here but really wanted the extra egg roll and the soda

Thursday 4/21
$59.86 - Whole Foods for groceries (used a GC)
$30 - copay for therapy (will get reimbursed by FSA if any available funds)
$152.58 - 4 Josh Ritter concert tickets for July. Friends will pay half of that to cover their tickets.

Total: $1503.03. $1247.15 if you subtract what we used GCs for. $1170.86 if you subtract what our friends will give us for the tickets. $1125.17 if you subtract the expected FSA reimbursements.

The travel and concert ticket costs are out of the norm, as are three Starbucks drinks in one week (let alone one day). It's not uncommon for us to spend $75 on concert tickets once per month, but we don't normally spend THIS much.

Food, corner store, and Amazon purchases are pretty standard. We probably spend too much on food, but in my defense, we eat well and I'm obsessive about food waste (do you see what I'm getting out of that ham?!). I'm also buying more convenience stuff (like pre-cut fruit, frozen items, etc.) than normal because H isn't back to full energy. Well, we also don't usually buy all our groceries at Whole Foods. But people gave us GCs during the hospitalization because I used them to eat from the hot bar twice per day, so we still have a bunch. So we are gratefully doing things like buying pre-cut fruit and frozen pizzas so that we don't have to spend lots of time in the kitchen when we just want to sleep.

Basically the generosity of friends has made it possible for us to not worry about paying bills despite the shitacular year we've had. We even have enough scratch to go to a few concerts before babyharpy arrives.

[Deleted]

I said I wasn't going to list all our fixed expenses, and then I think I did. LOL!

[Deleted]

Guess my life of bougie food and Willie Nelson tickets is super boring. LOL!

[mrsd2006]

Willie Nelson is awesome!! That cat food is $$$$. I hope your husband is back to his normal self sooner rather than later.

[raangoli]

I've also given up on bringing lunch to work since I only go into the office 2x a week. I just can't deal with it for some reason and it gives me an excuse to get away from my desk for a bit and take a walk.

[flatlan]

I love reading these! Thanks for sharing!

[Deleted]

Apr 21, 2017 8:46:33 GMT -5 mrsd2006 said:

Willie Nelson is awesome!! That cat food is $$$$. I hope your husband is back to his normal self sooner rather than later.

I know! Stupid high maintenance cats. One of the cats got a couple of UTIs in fairly close succession to each other. The vet recommended this food. Between that and his fancy cat fountain (I think we are on our third because the tiny motors eventually wear out), he hasn't had a recurrence. So we figure the spendy food is cheaper and less painful than repeated vet visits, right? But yeah, Mr. Bougie Food has also probably ruined a couple thousand bucks worth of stuff by peeing on it and last year cost us about $1500 in veterinary ophthalmology costs after accidentally stabbing his brother in the eye. It's a good thing he's cute.

[Deleted]

Apr 21, 2017 9:42:31 GMT -5 suzv said:

Thanks for sharing! Daycare for us $1240/month and I have a ton of student loan debt as well. It feels hard to make any progress on anything else with the amount we pay towards those two items!

babyharpy should start 4K in 2021. My SLs, which account for about $900/month of the total, will be paid off in 2023. WE GONNA BE RICH! WE GONNA BE RICH!

[ssmjlm]

I feel you on the special pet food. Our dog's special bladder food is $$$ and only from the vet.