Tex's money journal, February 21 - February 27

I originally planned to do these like Refinery29's Money Diaries, but my life is not interesting enough to be broken down by times! Also, these days I don't do much more than sleep, work, and obsess about my finances. I'm hoping I'll be more interesting in a couple of weeks!

February 21 (Sunday)

One of the things I forgot to mention in last week's spending was my order of emergency food from Go Habitat. I ordered their two week supply at the recommendation of a coworker. He even provided me a discount code that gave me $38.50 off, so it cost me $143.20. I charged it to my Marriott Amex (the one I'm working to pay down, sigh), and after a couple of days decided to pay for it out of my short-term savings - that is more or less the point of that savings account!

I didn't spend any money today. Well, not entirely true. I had a minor freakout about our project deadline being in 12 days, so instead of taking a break to cook the soup I had planned (I had also forgotten to take the chicken out of the freezer), I ordered a bunch of Indian food. Work had given us DoorDash credit, so it didn't actually cost me anything out of pocket. It was about $60 worth of food, plus $10 in tip (I have DashPass through one of my credit cards so the other fees were minimal). I ordered vegetable pakoras, mulligatawny soup, saag paneer, chana masala, naan, cheese naan (my favorite!), and a vegetarian sampler that consisted of "half" portions of saag paneer, dal bukhara, and malai kofta, plus roti, spinach pakoras, a samosa, and gulab jamun. It ended up making about 8 meals - the soup and the pakoras/samosa, the entree saag paneer and chana masalas were two each, and the vegetarian sampler half portions were another three. I have grocery pickup scheduled for Tuesday, with a very simple crockpot meal in the rotation and a slightly more complicated recipe (egg roll in a bowl) as well. 

Breakfast was oatmeal with egg, I finished off the last lemon chicken thighs with green beans for lunch and ate a cheese naan, a few pakoras, and a small portion of saag paneer for dinner. (I was pleased that I stopped eating when I was full. A problem I've had for a very long time is the inability to self-regulate an appropriate amount of food, so it was nice to do it even just this once.)

I spent most of Sunday working my tail off because of that freakout. It had the happy result that I felt much better about our progress by the end of the day, so all's well that ends well.

Day 1 total: $0

February 22 (Monday)

Another no-spend day. Breakfast was oatmeal and egg again, lunch was chana masala (spicy!) and naan, and dinner was mulligatawny soup and the remaining pakoras and samosa.

Work was good, and our status meeting helped me realize we were in better shape than I had thought the previous day. I went out for a lunchtime walk, my first in over a week, and felt much better physically and mentally for it. 

Day 2 total: $0

February 23 (Tuesday)

Time to spend money! I did my laundry (just clothes) for the first time in over a week ($1.50), picked up my grocery order from HEB ($65.68), made a small donation ($10), and got my tax refund, so after topping off a couple of budget envelopes (my entertainment spending went a lil crazy last week with the tea and the gym program purchase), I put the rest toward the Marriott Amex ($276.13). I'm so close to being under $1,000 with that card! Once the short-term savings transfer for the emergency food posts, the balance will be finally be in the three digits. My Amazon Prime annual payment also posted ($128.82), that amount will come out of my annual savings fund. $482.13

Work wasn't super-productive. I think I swung too far in the other direction from Sunday's freakout and was just complacent and easily distracted. Breakfast was a jalapeno-cheese kolache from the grocery order and a banana, lunch was dal bukhara and more naan, and dinner was saag paneer. I made more naan (completely whole wheat) because I clearly didn't order enough. I'm a little nervous I'll eat it all instead of eating it with meals like I'm planning to, but this is something I need to work on.

I signed off my work computer at nearly midnight and went to take off my makeup with an oil-based cleanser, only after the application of which did I discover that the water had been shut off in our condos. I checked my email and saw the management company had sent out a notice saying they found a "major leak." This is crazy annoying because I've been using up all the water I boiled/bottled last week, so I only have a couple of bottles left, and they don't have a timeline for when they'll fix it.

Day 3 total: $482.13

February 24 (Wednesday)

I let my annoyance at the water situation get the best of me this morning. I went to the local grocery store to buy water (I haven't been in a grocery store in months!), and also picked up instant coffee and some Coke Zero ($8.76). Then since I was already out of my house, I mobile ordered Starbucks and went to pick it up. I had to reload my Starbucks balance ($15) to cover the cost of the coffee, but I decided it was worth it. Then I subscribed to the new People Royal magazine because I'm low-key obsessed with the English monarchy, and I wanted a little treat to make me feel better ($20). I moved money from my car envelope to top off the entertainment envelope again to cover these expenses - the only driving I'm currently doing is to and from the grocery store. $43.76

The water came on again around 4 pm, which was a relief. I'm skeptical it will stay on, but at least I have supplies to deal with it if necessary. 

Day 4 total: $43.76

February 25 (Thursday)

I woke up before my alarm, which was not ideal given that I went to bed after midnight. I do think I would function well with 7.5 hours of sleep generally, but for some reason I insist on attempting 9 hours. 

I ended up having a terrible time focusing on work today. Eight days til we're done with this project, but most of my part is done. I got a reminder email that I had signed up for Austin Monthly's Front Porch Session, the virtual version of which comes with a free cocktail kit that you have to pick up from Still Austin the day of the show. While I was picking that up, I impulse bought a bottle of their gin and a bottle of their whiskey. (I haven't even tried their gin yet; it was the sample in the cocktail kit yesterday but my cocktail shaker is currently occupied with leftover tea from the storm when I had no other containers.) $77

I was supposed to make soup for dinner, but I talked myself into getting pepperoni rolls instead. I'll have to make the soup for lunch tomorrow, but it's a pretty simple recipe. Pepperoni rolls were $8.65, but I round up for a tip (even though I always order carry out). $10

And of course, today is the day my Chase minimum payments post ($345 total). The short-term savings transfer for my emergency food hit as well, so I threw that at the Marriott Amex ($143.20). The balance is finally under $1,000! I'm so close to paying it off at last. $488.20

Day 5 total: $575.20

February 26 (Friday)

A decent workday, and I signed off at 5 pm (for 5 o'clock Friday!). Breakfast was a jalapeno kolache and a banana, lunch was cabbage egg roll soup I didn't make last night, and dinner is pot roast (literally just a pork roast with cream of mushroom soup and onion soup mix) over egg noodles, with a side of Italian green beans with olives. I spent the evening watching Modern Family and reading on my Kindle. (Actually on the Kindle webpage.)

Today my private student loan posted ($55.43 + $21.94), and I sent $5 to my short-term savings account from the unallocated envelope in my budget. $82.37

Day 6 total: $82.37

February 27 (Saturday)

Ugh, I drank too many bee's knees cocktails last night (I drank three total). I also dropped the shaker while making what would have been my third one, splattering gin, lemon and honey all over my kitchen - and naturally I didn't clean it up while I was inebriated, I just cleaned the shaker and made another one. I slept terribly, too - ever since this year's Whole30, booze hits me so much harder than it used to. I woke up three hours after I went to bed (I'm already sleep-deprived because of work!) and couldn't go back to sleep for a while, so I played on my phone a bit. Then I only got another three hours of sleep, so my day started earlier than I would have liked. More phone time before I got up (it's such a bad habit). 

I was going to go start doing some laundry I'd been procrastinating, but I overheard some neighbors mention that there were supposed to be plumbers on site from 10 am to noon, and I didn't think I'd be done with the washers by then, so I just didn't start. Instead I got onto my work laptop a little earlier than usual for a weekend.

My Fire TV remote stopped working a while back, but the box was still working, so I had just been using the app on my phone as a remote. (Technology is wonderful.) Tonight, though, I'm not sure what happened, but the app couldn't connect to the box. Hulu played on for a while, which was perfect, but eventually I got the "Are you still watching?" message and had to set up my Fire TV Stick.

Day 7 total: $0

Weekly spend: $1,183.46

Mostly credit card payments this week! I'm very stoked about my Marriott Amex balance getting below $1k.

• Credit cards: 764.33
• Entertainment: 250.82
• Student loan: 77.37
• Groceries: 74.44
• Donation: 10
• Savings: 5
• Laundry: 1.50

Tex's money journal, February 14 - February 20

I originally planned to do these like Refinery29's Money Diaries, but my life is not interesting enough to be broken down by times! Also, these days I don't do much more than sleep, work, and obsess about my finances. 

February 14 (Sunday)

Ah, Valentine's Day, the scourge of single women everywhere. I woke up at like 10 am (I took NyQuil last night shortly before midnight) feeling surprisingly refreshed. I idled in bed with my laptop and my cats snuggled up until a little before noon. I finally got up to make toast because I was hungry, and the cats wanted their food. A friend messaged about doing a virtual Puzzled Pint meet up, so I spent a couple of hours with some friends doing the January puzzles. We got all the way to the bonus puzzle and then I kind of lost interest and remembered I still needed to do some work, so I signed off with my friends to switch to my work computer.

I got some quality work done! For dinner, I made pork loin from the freezer with lots of broccoli, which was delicious. I drank a big glass of wine and a couple of small servings of Bauchant, and I'm extremely surprised how it made me flush, but if I had to guess, I would assume it's the six weeks of no drinking.

My gym sent out an offer for a new program that starts the day after my current project ends, so I signed up for it! I did it in November and it was... moderately successful for me. I'm hoping that once this current project ends, I'll have more energy and interest in exercising. I think my schedule should be much better when I'm not working 12+ hours a day. For an eight-week program, it's only twenty dollars, so I'm hopeful it will help motivate me! $21.65

Netflix finally implemented the price increase they've been threatening, so my monthly bill is now $15.14 - and that also posted today. $15.14

Day 1 total: $36.79

February 15 (Monday)

Ugh - all the booze last night had me waking up before 5:30 a.m. I could not convince myself to go back to sleep, so I browsed my phone for a while and lazed in bed with the cats. I finally got up around 7:30 and got dressed in a ton of layers (did I mention that it snowed a couple of inches last night?). My condo seems to be on a section of the power grid that's not affected by the rolling brownouts in the area, but I still feel obligated to turn down the heat and conserve power. The local power company requested 68 degrees on our thermostats, which I was surprised to see was already the setting this morning, so I ended up turning it down to 56 as the day went on and more outages were reported.

Last month's spending credit card payment posted today - not counting that toward my daily spend since the money was already acknowledged earlier. (It was $1.3k - higher than the usual $800 or so because of my car insurance premium.)

I spent the day working in bed, since my bedroom was the warmest place in the house and my bed has good thick blankets. I got a really good chunk of work done, but I signed off “early” (around 7 pm) because what I did all day was repetitious and boring, and half my team wasn’t working anyway because of lack of power. I took a nap that somehow didn’t last all night, got up and ate dinner (both lunch and dinner were leftover pork loin and broccoli), then did the dishes and crawled right back into bed.

I wanted pizza for dinner again, but there was no way I was leaving my place, so I sucked it up. I did polish off the S’mores Girl Scout cookies (dang they were tasty!) and had some plantain chips.

I’m hopeful I don’t lose power the next couple of days, but if I do, I’m trying to think of how to feed and caffeinate myself. I have camping gear, so I can always set up my little aluminum side table and camp burner on the porch so I can boil water or heat up food (why didn’t I make soup?). I can make oatmeal for breakfast - or heck, even any meal, really - and I have Triscuits I’m sure I can do something with. I should make chicken broth in the Instant Pot tomorrow morning - normally I prefer to do 20 hours in the slow cooker, but I’d rather not try to count on consistent electricity.

Day 2 total: $0

February 16 (Tuesday)

Still cold! I worked in bed all day, since I left my heat at 56. I drank lots of coffee and tea. I made my chicken broth in the Instant Pot, and I'm obsessed with doing it now - the recipe I found online suggested putting everything in the strainer insert, and it made taking all the ingredients out super-easy!

I ordered tea from The Republic of Tea because there was a tea in the Resolution box I ordered from Sips By that I really liked. I ordered a couple other versions that also sounded good - I ordered Get Wellness (the one I got from Sips By), Get Some Zzzs, Get Heart, and Get Relaxed. I had a discount code for buy three get one free. $40.74

My monthly Hulu charge also posted, too. $12.98

Day 3 total: $53.72

February 17 (Wednesday)

Another day working in bed - it's the warmest part of the house. This morning I made some lemon chicken with green beans from the Whole30 Slow Cooker. Not my favorite recipe, turns out, but edible, and luckily it only made four servings that I have to eat. (Specifically, I didn't like the flavor the tomatoes imparted to the green beans, but it turns out enough salt can get me past it. If I make it again, I'll leave out the tomatoes.)

Today all my second paycheck savings went out - cat savings ($170), vacation savings ($300), and annual expense savings ($100). $570

Day 4 total: $570

February 18 (Thursday)

It's still so cold! I worked in bed again. I've been eating savory oatmeal with egg for breakfast the last couple of days. Lunch was the leftover lemon chicken, and dinner was leftover pork and broccoli. There's been a boil water notice since yesterday, so dishes have been tricky, but I boiled plenty of water and managed to hand wash a few things. The dishwasher has been full up already for a couple days.

My PBS donation ($5.15) and my iCloud storage ($0.99) charges processed today, and my Affirm payment ($109.27) and my Marriott Amex payment ($704.29) also posted. $819.70

Day 5 total: $819.70

February 19 (Friday)

A good day of work! I ended at 6 (instead of the usual 5) because I was on a roll, and then I watched Modern Family. I really wanted to order pizza, but the boil water notice is still on, so my favorite place is closed, and even most Pizza Huts were closed. I'm not quite ready to venture out on the roads, either. I ended up making a loaf of 100% whole wheat bread and eating almost half of it! I forgot to eat dinner because I was full of bread. I had the lemon chicken for lunch - just one more serving of it! I turned the heat up to 60 finally, because most people in Austin have gotten their power back.

My Discover payment posted today ($500) - I'm making good progress on paying that down. $500

Day 6 total: $500

February 20 (Saturday)

Slept in a bit, then got up and got to work. I ate the last serving of pork and broccoli for lunch, and worked til around 6 pm. 

Last night was the final night of the 2021 Austin snowstorm, where it got down to freezing one last time. I was extremely lucky that I retained power and water the whole time. The worst thing that happened was I lost water pressure a couple days ago, and I kept the temperature at 56 to minimize my energy usage. My worst fear was that my pipes would burst - my house is full of crap that I need to declutter, and it would be so stressful to try to clean that up!

No spending today!

Day 7 total: $0

Weekly total: $1,980.21

Not too bad a week - mostly savings and credit card/loan payments.

• Credit cards: 1204.29
• Affirm: 109.27
• Savings: 570
• Entertainment: 96.65   

Tex's money journal, February 7 - February 13

 I originally planned to do these like Refinery29's Money Diaries, but my life is not interesting enough to be broken down by times! Also, these days I don't do much more than sleep, work, and obsess about my finances. 

February 7 (Sunday)

Woke up around 7:30 - I will admit, I was wearing a sleep mask but it was slightly askew, so when I opened my eyes and could see light, I panic-jerked awake only to discover it was 7:30. Got up around 8 so I could get started on my day! 

Reintroducing non-gluten grains today, so I made oatmeal with an egg in it for breakfast (and coffee, of course). I also started a load of laundry around 8:15, given how annoying the facility usage has been the last couple of weeks. Just clothes this week, so I was in and out in about half an hour. $1.50

I spent the morning working on classwork for a certificate I'm getting through work (our first real assignment was due today and I had done very little of it). I finished earlier than I had planned, so I switched gears to get dinner into the crockpot. After that was started, I went for my daily walk. I forgot eggs in my grocery order, but it turns out Walgreens sells them, so I popped in there at the tail end of my walk to grab a carton. (I am slightly annoyed that every carton had a use by date of Feb 9, but that's not going to stop me from using them after that date. Eggs tend to be last much longer than the use by dates indicated, and I'll check the freshness by floating them in a cup of water before I use them.) $1.99

After lunch (the taco filling from last night on corn tortillas), I did a couple hours' work. Around 4, I realized I couldn't focus anymore, so I switched gears to my living room and watched an episode and a half of Flack before putting on the Super Bowl. (I don't really care about pro football, but I've put enough money on the two squares games I'm in that I'm invested in the scores, at least.)

Browsing recipes during the game instead of really paying attention, I finally decided to buy some dried porcini mushrooms from Amazon to make Nom Nom Paleo’s magic mushroom powder. The charge goes to my Amazon credit card (another one I’m in the process of paying off) so I transfer the purchase price from my entertainment budget to the debt payment envelope for that card. $21.42

The Bucs win, and so did I! I had the winning set of numbers for one game for the last two quarters, so I won $275! I use the money to restock my entertainment envelope with the amount I spent on both squares games, and I put the remaining $225 in my Marriott Amex debt payment envelope.

Day 1 total: $24.91

February 8 (Monday)

Why did I meal plan to have to make breakfast every day this week? Such a bad idea in busy season, even if bacon and eggs is delicious. I didn’t wake up til 8 or get out of bed til 8:45, so I was late to work. I wonder if 9 am meetings would do the trick.

My productivity pod and I didn’t have very successful days. I spent a lot of time coaching new team members and planning with my boss.

Lunch was my last serving of the weekend’s Instant Pot tacos (on lettuce leaves again) and it was just as good as the first time - and as messy! I didn’t get out for a walk at lunch, but an afternoon meeting that was supposed to go for an hour ended after only 30 minutes, so I snuck out for my walk then. I also did some chores (taking out trash/recycling, cleaning the cats’ water fountain) during downtime.

Dinner was a serving of the hearty herbed pork stew I made yesterday. I had to add salt to get it as tasty as I wanted, but it wasn’t bad. Unfortunately we had an emergency water shutoff, I think to deal with a leak, right as I finished dinner, so I wasn’t able to do my dishes. Luckily I was warned by an HOA board member on my way in from my walk about the possibility of the shutoff, so I have several containers of tap water on my counter.

I spent $30 on annual fees for an online trivia league I’m in. I could dip into my annual expense fund but I’m going to cash flow it this time since I’m in a good spot with my Super Bowl winnings! $30

Day 2 total: $30

February 9 (Tuesday)

The water was shut off again this morning. Luckily it was after I had dealt with yesterday’s dishes and taken a shower, and I still had bottles I’d filled up with tap water the night before. Trés annoying, nonetheless.

Breakfast was scrambled eggs and bacon again. For lunch, I was supposed to cook something in my Instant Pot, but the water was still out and I guessed (correctly, as it turned out) that it would be a recipe I’d need to wash my hands for a lot. (A whole raw chicken was involved.) So instead I ate pork stew for lunch and ignored my dishes until the water came back on. Dinner was Instant Pot Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic from the Whole30 Slow Cooker cookbook. I made a number of mistakes from the outset (I bought a whole chicken to piece out myself, I didn’t buy pre-peeled garlic, etc.) but despite the prep work taking forever, it turned out really good - and I know what not to do next time! (Like, I think searing the chicken before pressure cooking may have been unnecessary.) It also only made 4 servings instead of my planned 6 (because I’m bad at breaking down a chicken), so I’ll be ordering something for lunch this weekend. (I can extend one of my planned reintro meals to cover another meal that day, so I’m only out one day of lunch.)

Work was busy, I stayed up til midnight chugging away. I’ll be really glad when this project is over!

The only money thing that happened was I paid off the credit card I used in December while waiting for a replacement for my daily use card (I thought someone had placed a fraudulent charge, but I realized like a month later that my local newspaper had been sold and the charge was my monthly subscription - which, by the way, had doubled without warning. Apparently when Chase rejected the charge because I thought it was fraud, the new owners canceled my subscription, but honestly, I don’t care. I love supporting local journalism but the new owners are based in the Northeast and are not doing a good job of communicating with customers.)

Day 3 total: $0

February 10 (Wednesday)

Dairy reintroduction today! I made a cheese omelet for breakfast and put half-and-half on my coffee. The other two meals were pork stew and garlic chicken, with plantain chips for a snack.

Busy workday again! I ended up closing everything on my computer except what I was working on so I could focus, which helped a ton.

Money-wise, my car payment posted (I owe less than $1,000 now!) and my Squares winnings posted to my Amex. For the third month in a row, Amazon has charged me for someone else’s fraudulent charge. Last month I asked Amazon to not allow charges on that card number any more (because I had it changed in December, but recurring charges can apparently keep happening) and they said they did, and I asked Amex to not allow any recurring charges to that old number any more, and they said they did, but here we are again, month 3 of some scammers getting cheapo Amazon Prime Video on my dime (although not literally because I’ve disputed the charge every month so far). I have to wait for my credit card statement to post so I can go back to Amazon with the full transaction reference number (it’s annoyingly cut off in the online view) and get them to take responsibility for not cutting off the scammer’s access to my card. I may talk to Amex tomorrow about why recurring charges are still being allowed, though. $441.78 (NOT including the scammers’ use of my card)

I also bought a VIP ticket for the Austin Mac N Cheese festival February edition. They’re doing a take-and-bake version this year that I think will be so fun! $54.14

Day 4 total: $495.92

February 11 (Thursday)

Not a very productive workday, sadly. I kept getting distracted. It’s very cold in central Texas right now (I don’t think it got out of the 30s today - last week I went on a walk in a t-shirt), and for some reason I was really affected by it today. I think it’s because I didn’t get to do either of my two usual cold weather acclimating activities - a trip to Chicago in the fall, and camping over New Year’s Eve (it rained on NYD, otherwise I would have braved the cold).

Scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast, garlic chicken for lunch, plantain chips for a snack, and pork stew and air fried French fries for dinner! I almost broke the reintro protocol to order a burrito from my favorite food truck, but apparently I’m now too far away for delivery (although I wasn’t in December). Since I didn’t want to leave my house to pick it up, either, because it's EXTREMELY cold here in Texas at the moment, I stuck to my meal plan.

During lunch, I discovered that you can deduct up to $300 in charitable giving from 2020 on your tax return. I updated my return with H&R Block and my refund went up by $66! I haven't filed yet because I'm missing ONE document from E*Trade, which I've been checking obsessively. (I've logged in more in the last two weeks looking for that document than I had in the entire year before.)

The only monetary transaction today was my NYTimes subscription. I swear they keep increasing the price and decreasing the payment interval... $18.09 

I’m tired, and I’m ready to be done with this work project. Less than a month to go!

Day 5 total: $18.09

February 12 (Friday)

A much more productive workday! Some of my coworkers and I were discussing the concept of Parkinson's Law, that work expands to fill the time allotted. Since it's Friday and we usually knock off at 5 pm even during busy times, I was much more motivated to get stuff done as quickly as possible.

I forgot that Monday is Presidents' Day, so I got paid today! My 401(k) decrease must have gone through, because my paycheck was about $120 higher than usual (I had calculated about $115). That extra money got put into my Marriott Amex debt payment envelope. The Amex balance is sitting below $2k finally, so the end is in sight!

It's still extremely cold in Texas. I didn't get out of my PJs to do work because they were warm, and when I finished work, I went straight upstairs to snuggle in my bed with a heating pad and extra blanket (and two cats, eventually). I battled cravings for pepperoni rolls and tried to remind myself that this reintro protocol is only for a few more days, but I failed. Something about the cold and being exhausted from working so much just got to me. $10

Breakfast was scrambled eggs and bacon, lunch was garlic chicken, and dinner was pepperoni rolls. I savored the hell out of them, since I hadn't had any in six weeks. I spent the evening watching old episodes of Black-ish on Hulu, and went to bed early.

Day 6 total: $10

February 13 (Saturday)

Woke up to cat puke noises. One of the cats (I assume the big one with lots of fur) yakked up a hairball on the floor in the bedroom. I laid in bed snuggling with the little cat for about an hour and reading on my phone. I checked E-Trade again to see if my last tax document was available, and it was! So I eventually got up and filed my taxes finally. (I am moderately annoyed I had to pay taxes in another state since I worked there for five weeks this time last year. I owed them an extra $25 on top of what they had withheld, and I had to pay an extra $32 to H&R Block for the privilege of filing that state return.) $67.14 (tax software fees) + $25 (other state tax owed)

Breakfast was scrambled eggs with sprouted wheat toast, lunch was tuna salad sandwich on more sprouted wheat toast (I have missed bread!), and dinner was my last serving of pork stew. I also ate four more slices of toast after dinner, plus for an afternoon snack I had a mini dark chocolate Kind bar and some Trader Joe's truffle chips that were highly recommended by a coworker (I didn't think they were that good). Oh, and I finally got into the Girl Scout cookies - I started with the S'Mores, which are delicious. (I really don't do moderation well...)

I did my laundry this morning ahead of the extremely cold weather that's due tomorrow and Monday - just clothes today. I'll do sheets/towels in a few days after the weather clears. $1.50

After I worked a few hours, I stopped to pick up Snap Kitchen (almond-crusted salmon and a brownie = 12.16) and my grocery order. I have ranch pork loin from the freezer, and I'll have lemon chicken thighs with green beans from the Whole30 Slow Cooker cookbook. My grocery list consisted of four 8-packs of sparkling water (there was a coupon and I didn't know about the bad weather so didn't know I would have to bring them all in the same day), a 4-pack of sparkling juice, a dozen eggs, freezer bags, yellow onions, a white onion, broccoli, green beans, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, russet potatoes (ya girl wants to get crazy with the air fryer), bananas, chicken thighs, chorizo, plantain chips, and pecans. $70.89

Oh, and my Google Internet payment posted. $70

Day 7 total: $234.53

Weekly total: $813.45

Not too bad a week!

• Groceries: 82.14
• Laundry: 3
• Credit cards: 287.63
• Internet: 70
• Car payment: 154.15
• Taxes: 92.14
• Dining out: 22.16
• Entertainment: 102.23

Tex's money journal, January 31 - February 6

I originally planned to do these like Refinery29's Money Diaries, but my life is not interesting enough to be broken down by times! Also, these days I don't do much more than sleep, work, and obsess about my finances. 

January 31 (Sunday)

Grocery pickup at 10 am this week. I need to reconsider these morning pickups - I like having my groceries early in the day, but I didn't even get a chance to sip my coffee before I had to go to the store. (I don't like to take it with me because I don't want to try to juggle it with my groceries on the way back in.) Luckily my first cup was still hot when I got back (roughly 30 min round-trip for grocery pickup - possibly not as time-saving as I thought, but I also don't have to go into the store, which saves me from potential impulse purchases and potential 'rona exposure). $62.25

Sundays are usually my chores day, so everything will be ready for the week ahead. Two loads of laundry (sheets/towels and clothes) cost me $4.50 in our community laundry. ($1.50 to wash each load, $1.50 to dry the sheets/towels - I line-dry my clothing.) My neighbors were rude and hogging the machines. I ended up removing someone’s nearly cool clothes from the dryer and putting them in the basket they left on top of the machine. The clothes were still there when I went back for my dry sheets/towels. $4.50

Meal prep time! As I mentioned last week, I have loaded burger bowls and chicken pot pie soup in the queue for this week. I made the soup first, and I’m interested to see how it turned out - I didn’t use celery (the stuff I had was limp and gross), and I used homemade chicken broth. The burger bowls took a surprisingly long time to prep/cook everything for, but damn are they good!

Day 1 total: $66.75

February 1 (Monday)

February already? This’ll be a heavy spending day, as several monthly charges hit today. Mortgage ($579.13), Patreon ($32.45), WF credit card ($82), Ipsy ($12.99), NYTimes Cooking ($5.32), and Wikimedia Foundation ($3.10). My annual Pandora subscription renewed, too ($51.83, which will come out of my annual expense sinking fund). Patreon is on the spendy side, for sure, but the four artists I’m supporting bring me a lot of joy, so I don’t regret that expense, and the most expensive one at $19/month has some amazing rewards. Ipsy is new for me in the last couple of months - I want to get better at makeup without buying full-size stuff! My January bag was lost in the mail and as soon as I reported it, they told me they would send me another - A+ customer service! I love to cook, so the NYT Cooking app is worth it to me - I am considering canceling my monthly subscription to the Times proper, though. And finally, I love Wikipedia and am happy to support it! Patreon, Ipsy, and Wikimedia are all charged to the card I'm currently working on paying off - not a great idea, I know! I did manage to put $53 towards that card. $819.82

Work was good and productive - support from the client finally started coming in! I also had a moment of realizing that I am the “adultier adult” in some conversations.

Food was meal prepped stuff - chorizo/potato/spinach frittata, loaded burger bowl, and chicken pot pie soup, with a Chomps stick (“clean” Slim Jim-type meat stick) for a snack. I got a $100 DoorDash credit from work that I’m excited to use soon!

Day 2 total: $819.82

February 2 (Tuesday)

Lost track of time a bit with work, but got a lot done. I’m exhausted, so I took a much-needed nap in the middle of the day. I was still tired when I woke up but I didn’t feel like immediately crashing, which was all I could hope for.

The only scheduled expense for today was my Gympass membership, which I get heavily discounted from work (I’m at the $25/month tier, discounted from $100). I’ve been waffling about canceling this the last several months - I haven’t been to the gym in almost a year because of the pandemic - but they offer workout apps, live classes, and one-on-one virtual training sessions, so I haven’t canceled yet (the apps in particular are my fave!). I also stopped at Walgreens for toothpaste and NyQuil. (The toothpaste was shockingly expensive, especially compared to the grocery store I usually get it at [they didn’t have it for last week’s order], and I bought two NyQuil to get a discount - I know I’ll use them eventually.) $51.48

Same meals as yesterday - my snack today was plantain chips, finishing the bag I bought on Sunday.

Day 3 total: $51.48

February 3 (Wednesday)

Zero interest in getting out of bed today. I finally convinced myself to, got in the shower, and logged on a couple minutes late (no one notices and I worked til 11:15 pm, so I think I made up for it!). Did some work, then at lunchtime, I went on a half-hour walk. I fell off my walking habit in December after I finished my last StepBet (I didn’t want to try to meet my step goal during my busiest time of the year) and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite pissed me off during an event (where the hell were we supposed to find the wit-sharpening gifts??). HPWU and StepBet were apparently in combo the two things that would get me out the door consistently. Now I’m just walking and listening to audiobooks, which is nice too. (Okay I did play HPWU today, trying to recapture the magic. It was... fine, I guess.)

Meals were all the same as the last two days (are you sensing a theme yet?). For a snack, I cut up two russet potatoes and made French fries in my air fryer - they were dang good but two potatoes was a little excessive.

One of my coworkers and I have started doing mini power hours (well, power half-hours) where we set goals for the next 30 min and then focus like crazy. They’ve been really helpful little sessions, so we’re going to keep them up!

HOA dues today ($259.89). They seem crazy expensive, but I was on the board a while back and the money’s being used correctly - they’ve also managed not to raise them for several years, which has been very nice not to worry about. Three of my savings accounts’ contributions were withdrawn ($300 total - $100 for car insurance, $80 for car repairs, $120 for what I call “short-term” but actually functions more as my emergency fund). Oh, and I bought another 5 squares in one of the Super Bowl squares games I’m in ($15). I also ordered groceries for pickup on Saturday afternoon (instead of Sunday morning!), but that charge doesn't post til the order's picked up, so I'm not counting it here. $574.89

Day 4 total: $574.89

February 4 (Thursday)

Another busy workday. My coworker and I continued our power half hours and were really productive. 

Today I reintroduced beans! I had scrambled eggs with black beans and salsa for breakfast, then for lunch I had a side of faux-refried black beans with my loaded burger bowl. The beans filled me up so much I wasn’t interested in my snack (which would have been roasted chickpeas) so I skipped it. At dinner I was supposed to have a side of lentils with my soup but I just plain forgot - and didn't really have time to make lentils anyway.

Money-wise, no active spending. The interest on one of my credit cards posted ($31.96), but that's it. I'm not going to count that towards my active spending because it will get double-counted when the card payment is made.

Day 5 total: $0

February 5 (Friday)

TGIF! Where I work, we're pretty committed to 5 o'clock Fridays, even during busy periods. I ended up working a little later trying to get some communications out, but I succeeded shortly before 6 and finally called it a day. Normally I love 5 o'clock Fridays and stick to them as much as humanly possible, but this week I just didn't really care because all I had planned for Friday evening was sitting in my living room and watching TV - big whoop.

My last meal-prepped breakfast-in-a-bowl for breakfast today. I had the chicken pot pie soup for lunch today so that I could make air fryer fries to go with my last loaded burger bowl for dinner - such a good idea! I couldn't really settle on what to watch on TV, so I watched the latest episode of Mr. Mayor, three episodes of Schitt's Creek while I was cooking/eating, and then I started watching Flack, which I really enjoyed! I got about three episodes in before calling it a night.

No cash outflows today, yay!

Day 6 total: $0

February 6 (Saturday)

I was surprised when I woke up after 9 am. I had gone to bed by 11 at the latest last night, but I guess I've been working so much (and sleeping badly) that I needed the sleep. That cut into my start time for work, since I needed to cook myself breakfast (bacon and eggs - was supposed to eat a banana also but never got around to it) and make coffee.

Work was moderately productive, although I didn't get as much done as I would have liked. I called it a day a little earlier than I would have liked, too, because I needed to go pick up my grocery order (it was scheduled for 4, I got to the store about 5:10 pm) and get ready for a virtual murder mystery party with some friends!

When I unpacked my groceries, I was a little shocked that they had cost as much as they did. I got corn tortillas (reintroducing non-gluten grains tomorrow), shredded cheese (dairy in a few days), half & half, sprouted wheat bread (next weekend), pre-chopped butternut squash (I just don't have time to wrestle with a whole one these days, and I only needed two cups, which this package conveniently contained), fresh organic thyme (okay this wasn't exactly necessary), spring mix, bananas, fresh parsnips (weirdly expensive given that it's winter), carrots, garlic, pork loin roast, a whole chicken, a package of bacon, Triscuits (for next weekend), plantain chips (should not have ordered two bags!), onion powder, coconut aminos, cat litter, and canned cat food (the latter two were paid out of the cats' sinking fund). $94.39 (only $68.21 without the cats' stuff - much more reasonable)

After putting away the groceries, I made the Instant Pot rich and saucy tacos from the Whole30 Slow Cooker cookbook. I served them on lettuce leaves that I bought last Sunday that were still good! (Tomorrow I'll have the tacos on corn tortillas and Monday lunch will be on lettuce again - fingers crossed it's still good then!) While the IP was doing its thing, I was hustling to get ready for the virtual murder mystery party - it was Valentine's Day dinner cruise-themed. I was kind of tired and not super-stoked to be socializing, but I'm very glad I did, it was a lot of fun (plus I had the second-most votes for the murderer, although it was not me!)

Day 7 total: $94.39

Total spending: $1,658.81

Ouch, another high-spend week. But it was mostly my usual first-of-the-month bills: mortgage, HOA, savings.

• Groceries: 156.64 (two weeks' worth!)
• Laundry: 4.50
• Credit cards: 135
• Mortgage: 579.13
• HOA: 259.89
• Savings: 300
• Entertainment: 172.17 
• Pharmacy: 51.48