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30 Aug 09 – Weekly Expenditure Adventure: Week 3
![[IMAGE]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3473/3211679114_380d1f2582_t.jpg)
(Updated to include bills paid on Wednesday.)
| Saturday | $41.84 | Fence posts for garden | |||
| Sunday | $37.60 | Gas, groceries, and a passport photo | |||
| Monday | $8.39 | Dinner at a Chinese restaurant | |||
| Tuesday | $39.30 | Gas and food at a farmer's market | |||
| Wednesday | $1,200.99 | Fruit and vegetables, mortgage bill, power bill, iPhone bill | |||
| Thursday | $12.75 | Lunch and dinner | |||
| Friday | $46.55 | Groceries | |||
| Total | $1,387.42 |
Okay, yeah, that's a lot to spend in a week, but $1,100 of that was mortgage, power, and iPhone bills. Cut that out, and it's about $200 for food, groceries, and gas. Which still seems like a lot.
I originally wrote, "I'd be in much better shape if I didn't eat out as much." But I only ate out three times this week, for a total expense of under $20. Much of the money went to those fence posts and $50 in gas this week.
I really hope my new truck isn't going to cost me $50 in gas every week.
But at least I'll know it.
21 Aug 09 – Weekly Expenditure Adventure: Week 2
![[IMAGE]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3393/3328400343_765003482a_m.jpg)
Friday feels like a good day to record and analyze my expenditures from the past week, though perhaps I should wait until later in the day. Ah well.
Here, I lay my soul (and wallet) bare:
| Saturday | $74.50 | Role-playing books and taxi rides at GenCon | |||
| Sunday | $77.73 | Includes $50 for airport parking | |||
| Monday | $32.37 | Groceries | |||
| Tuesday | $47.04 | Includes Anime USA badge; see below | |||
| Wednesday | $20.00 | Gas | |||
| Thursday | $13.80 | Dinner and toll road fares | |||
| Friday (estimate) | $40.00 | Groceries | |||
| Total | $230.84 |
Saturday and Sunday were spent at GenCon, thus explaining the higher values then. I had to pay $50 for airport parking on Sunday. Urrrrg.
I bought groceries on Monday to stock up after GenCon, and had to buy a $40 badge for Anime USA on Tuesday since I'm going to be running a panel and they don't give out free badges for that (<sigh>). I'll be buying groceries tonight, thus the estimated $40 expenditure. Yes, I normally spend about $40 per week on groceries.
The total actually feels pretty reasonable to me. Subtract the unusual expenditures on Saturday ($20 in the exhibition hall and $40 for taxi rides) and Sunday ($50 for parking), and I spent about $120 this week on groceries, gas, and food, which includes essentially two weeks' worth of groceries.
I'd like to be more frugal than this, but how can I be until I understand myself better? Which is the whole point of this exercise, after all.
18 Aug 09 – Weekly Expenditure Adventure: Week 1
![[IMAGE]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3397/3301815853_ea32f295cd_m.jpg)
I'm trying to live within my means. This blog post is the first record of how much money I'm spending each week. I only started recording my purchases on Wednesday of last week, but even so, here are my purchases:
| Wednesday | $40.00 | ||
| Thursday | $88.75 | ||
| Friday | $70.00 | ||
| Saturday | $74.50 | ||
| Total | $273.25 |
This is due mainly to $40 per day spent taking a taxi to and from GenCon, and buying lunch and dinner out every day from Thursday on. So it seems like a pretty reasonable amount.
As much fun as I had at GenCon, it was expensive. Here's everything I spent, including prior purchases:
| Airfare | $264.20 | ||
| Hotel | $420.00 | ||
| Con badge | $71.00 | ||
| Game tickets | $16.00 | ||
| Taxi to and from convention center | $150.00 | ||
| Dice, books, and other exhibit hall purchases | $48.00 | ||
| Food | $152.98 | ||
| Total | $1,122.18 |
Seems amazingly expensive when I actually look at the final tally. And none of that was really avoidable, other than the $150 taxi fares if I'd reserved a convention hotel.
13 Aug 09 – Humans Don't Grow In The Dark
![[IMAGE]](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2469/3594363803_95f34d5de6_m.jpg)
I've been thinking a lot lately about throughput.
I think we all understand the concept: how much stuff can be forced through a particular channel at once. Humans have throughput limits, too.
I currently have a stack of books teetering next to the leather chair in my studio. This stack has towered over 2 feet high for months. When will I ever get through the pile? And what happens when I get a new book? How long will it take me to get to it?
Every week, I write a list of projects that I want to accomplish that week. I usually aim for 10 projects a week, but I rarely get through half of the list. From one perspective, that's okay; at least I'm accomplishing things. But wouldn't I be better off with more realistic estimates of my throughput?
Thanks to a few monetary gifts, I've had a lot of disposable income for the past few months. I, er, don't any more. I need to be more responsible with my money, so I live within my means. How can I do so when I make those purchases privately?
So. I'm aiming to read one physical book a week, and will post a review of that book here when I'm done. Thus, you can expect a book review here every week (with a few exceptions; Saalon's gift of Neal Stephenson's 960-page Anathem will take a few weeks). Next week's book is Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go.
I'm going to limit my list of weekly projects to five.
And, I'm going to keep detailed records of how much money I spend each week, and post the numbers here every week. Not every single expenditure, but weekly totals, and analysis of expensive days and key purchases. (It'll be revealing to fully account for the monetary cost of GenCon.)
I believe this is the best way to push me to change. What do you think?