So after two glorious months of running way under budget, I seem to have decided to make up for lost time: along comes an $1818 bill from AMEX.
[Gasp!]
Studying the charges, we wonder what have we done to deserve this? Hmmmm…
$147 at the Costco: nothing out of the ordinary. That’s the start-of-the-month stock-up, and it’s under $200. You hafta allow that getting out of Costco for less than two hundred bucks is a rare accomplishment.
Forty-six bucks to El Bravo, our favorite Mexican restaurant. Whaa? I must have paid both tabs.
Williams-Sonoma: $276.90!!!! Holy shee-ut. Well, that’s the set of stainless — two sets, actually, since W-S only sells sets in four place settings. Okay. I’ve been well pleased with those, though. In fact, I think I like them better than the silver I so highly resented having to put away, thanks to the politically correct “improvements” in dishwasher design. And I’ll tell ya: $277 would pay for about three forks in that Christofle, now locked in a closet somewhere.
Leslie’s Pool Supply: $70. I have no idea. Presumably supplies of some sort.
Leslie’s Pool Supply: $120. Ugh. I bought a lifetime supply of chlorine shock treatment, having grown weary of driving over there every time I turn around. The algae was coming back, thanks to my neglect. Pool looks darned good right now! 😉
All Saints Episcopal Church: $100. Donation in the form of a silent auction purchase.
All Saints Episcopal Church: $90. Lordie! I thought we were required to buy a ticket for the dinner at the auction, at which we were to sing. Turns out many choir members did not. Apparently it wasn’t a requirement at all.
[Redacted]: $75. Christmas gift for son.
Shane: $78. Not the most expensive hair stylist in town, but getting there.
Otro Cafe: $24. Lunch with a friend. Probably should’ve invited her to lunch here…
So how do these add up? Let’s assume the $70 Leslie’s bill was something I couldn’t avoid — delete that. All the rest: highly optional.
Et voila: $732 in unnecessary or extraordinary expenses. That’s just about the amount the budget has been busted.
Is there a frugalist message here? Probably more than one…
1. Reconsider the wisdom of buying lifetime supplies of stuff, even if it’s something you will use over time and will have to buy over time. Ten or twenty bucks once a month will not bust the budget the way a $120 bill can.
2. Stay out of the goddamn restaurants!!!!!!!!!
3. Make do with what you have.
4. Do not run with a high-powered social set whose members can afford to drop $190 without blinking. When you are pore folks, know your place and stay in it. 😉
Wow…. My CC’s have actually been the opposite. For whatever reason just haven’t been buying a lot of things….BUT that could change at any time. Just had the furnace repairman to one of the rentals for “no heat call” …. haven’t got the bill for that yet. I’m of the opinion that Costco is just evil…LOL….Well maybe not evil….just not for me. Something about gallon containers of mustard and mayonnaise….
And you are very correct to stay out of the restaurants….DW and I stopped at a place on the way home from shopping on Black Friday at a family restaurant. We each got steak subs, an order of fries, she got a salad and we drank water…..$24 before tip….So $30 “soup to nuts”. … for basically “semi fast food” . $7.50 for a steak sub???? What the %#@!!! Glad we don’t do that often!
And on the subject of finances. It appears loyalty does still exist. I stopped by my Bank to dispute some “new charges” of $9 per month on my checking account. Met a very nice CSR who was impressed and amazed at the age of my account….WAIT…WHAT??? Came up with a compromise that will allow me to continue being a customer if I don’t let the balance go below $500 which is fair…..AND refunded my $9…So it would appear they DO want “bidness”….
Bank: There’s a nice Christmas miracle for you! They must be losing business…maybe people are wising up to credit unions.
I fail to understand how people afford to eat in restaurants all the time, but apparently many — or even MOST — people do. The suburbs here sport malls that have nothing BUT restaurants: ten or fifteen sit-down and grab-and-go eateries, none of which are especially cheap compared to real food prepared in your kitchen. And just now, the fast-gentrifying central area is sprouting fancy gourmet-style restaurants by the score. Three are going in around my favorite upscale grocery store, where three others were built nearby — one of them an expensive ice cream parlor.
The same entrepreneurs responsible for those started with a casual (very good!) place in Arcadia and ended up buying land around it and installing another three or four chow lines. What they’re selling are moderately upscale restaurants — not break the bank but not cheap, either — that feature “organic” dishes that don’t look like they were churned out of a short-order kitchen. Even though they probably ARE short-order (in that it can’t take long to fix them), ingredients are fresh and healthy. People are willing to pay more for this, evidently.
Y’know, there’s no way commerce could support that many restaurants if folks weren’t eating out a lot. My guess is most people eat out some, and many people eat out all the time.
My own budget-buster will be a money-saver, eventually: I bought a bunch of discounted gift cards to use for the movies. As in, around $500 worth of the things.
Yep: Ouch. But DF and I are going to some of the Metropolitan Opera HD broadcasts, which run about $44 for the two of us. It won’t take too long to use them up at that rate, and we’re saving 20 percent off the regular price this way.
After this I’m going to slam the spending to a halt — until some time in January, when I go to visit Abby and Tim in Phoenix. Will let you know when that happens; maybe we can grab some tea or have another blogger meet-up.
That trip won’t cost too terribly much, as I have a buddy pass from a friend who works for an airline (90% off published fare) and I am cashing in some gift cards for meals out courtesy of two rewards programs. Cheapskates R us.
That sounds cool — the opera, I mean. I think they used to do those here now and again, but I haven’t heard of one in a while. But then…I don’t get the local paper anymore so probably wouldn’t hear of it.
Give me a call when you get down here. Ninety percent off! That’s awesome!
Yeah, I have months where I am moving money (on paper only) from one account to another because things just got away from me. And then some months I’m flush and have a small pile left over to decide what to do with. I definitely prefer the second kind of month.
But I do think the world is eating out more. There are a few people who were born loving to cook, and then there are the rest of us. After frugally raising a family and finally making it to retirement, I’m so happy to have the money to eat out a couple of times a week. And I won’t even mention the many Costco food court lunches we manage to cram in. 😀
It IS handy to be able to trick oneself into saving a few bucks here and there. This month I got two big checks from Medicare, for which the Mayo hasn’t billed me. Because we’re getting close to having paid off the whole bill and because the last time I overpaid, the Mayo refused to refund my money, I’m holding on the to Medicare dollars till I see an actual bill. To do that, I opened a “club” savings account at the credit union. Costs me nothing, but it definitely sets that DON’T-SPEND-IT! money aside so I can’t diddle it away.
I can remember a huge national advertising campaign — think it took place in the 1960s — to urge people to “Eat Out More.” Every time you turned around, here was another ad telling you to go out to eat. I guess that kind of drumbeat works, because SOMETHING sure changed people’s habits. When I was a kid in the 1950s, we rarely ate out — certainly no more than once every two or three months. We had a favorite place to eat, but it was a treat to go there, not a routine.
And in those days there weren’t a lot of restaurants, even in San Francisco. At least, not to the crazy extent that we see now. There were few or no chain restaurants, and the food you got even in a greasy spoon was actual REAL food, not processed gunk tricked out to look like food. I think that’s the appeal of the new wave of restaurants: they serve up a lot more real, fresh food than restaurants have in the past.
How in the world did the Mayo justify not returning your money in an over payment on a medical bill?
The gist of the argument was “you’ll be back [he was r-i-i-i-g-h-t!] and we’ll apply this to a future bill.” But in fact I think what was going on was they’re never sure when all the figures for a given visit, set of tests, or procedure and all the insurance reimbursements have stopped flowing in to Accounts Receivable. He probably figured there could be more to the bill. It was only 23 bucks, so I let it go — not worth the hassle to get it back. And as a practical matter, I ran up much more than $23 in bills over the months and years to come.
It frosted my cookies, but not enough to get very worked up about. The only thing is, now I drag my heels on paying, until I’m pretty sure the bottom line is the real bottom line.
We’re now down to about $1700, and (given that the last few procedures have probably racked up about 60 or 80 grand in bills, all told), that appears to be near the end of the interminable back & forth with the Mayo, the insurance, and me. So now that we seem to be closing in on the final payoff, I’m going to be a lot more careful about how much I fork over.