Day	Amount	Place	Category
Monday	$48.22	Gas	Car
Tuesday	$25.72	Rx Dogfood	Pets
	$5.46	Jack in the Box	Allowance
Wednesday	$24.69	Red Robin	Eating Out
Thursday	$23.07	Safeway	Groceries
	$75.97	CostCo	Groceries
	$193.76	Kinnect	Allowance
	$16.41	Barnes & Noble	Allowance
Friday	$36.00	Larry- shots	Pets
	$3,000.00	Loan to brother	Misc
Saturday	$31.80	Fred Meyer	House
	$7.98	Trader Joes	Groceries
	$6.00	Key Arena	Allowance
	$35.00	Thai food	Eating Out
Sunday	$6.65	Starbucks	Allowance

I managed to spend money every single day this last week. That so needs to stop. Even though things like gas and getting the prescription dog food for Howie are needed, I can’t let feeling stressed and out of control about other things in my life be an excuse for letting myself be out of control with our spending.

Yes, we loaned my brother $3,000. There will be a post about this later this week.

Not counting the loan to my brother, we didn’t even spend all that much, especially when you consider that we still had a $100 gift card that paid for over half of the Kinnect and that J will be paying for the rest. But it’s not the amount that’s getting to me It’s the frequency.

Some spending decisions are not all me- we chose to go out Wednesday night. C is really the one who wanted the Kinnect on Thursday, and since we were out, we did our CostCo shopping that night. Larry needed his yearly shots- especially a rabies vaccine. Those things I can concede. Paying for dinner with a dear friend on Saturday and my regular Sunday Starbucks (though I should go back to regular tea instead of chai, it’s much cheaper) are, again, specific choices I make, and I am fine with those things.

So that really leaves two items that had me feeling out of control this week. Only two, and yet, they just make me mad at myself- On Tuesday, I had lunch in the fridge at work. There was no need for me to stop at Jack in the Box. I just did. Thursday morning I stopped at Safeway to pick up a condolence card for my former boss whose husband died last week. That part is fine. But then buying chips and snack food for my desk and a giant (though only $5) thing of peanut butter cookies for the office? Not needed

Good things about this week:

We got a Kinnect. It is tons of fun and will hopefully help us with this being more active thing.

I went to a FREE simulcast of Madama Butterfly on Saturday with one of my oldest friends. She and I had a great time out.

We got a LOT of work done on the basement. A number of bins got packed and labeled and made it into the attic. We have a donation pile. We’ve cleared out our file cabinet and have shredded most of the old paperwork that was in there so that we can file the newer paperwork we need to keep. We are throwing away a lot of stuff that never should have made the move from the last house with us. C and I both have a commitment to getting things done so that the house can pass the home inspection.

We’re looking at setting ourselves a deadline (since I’m a procrastinator and work best with deadlines), probably sometime in June.

I’m hoping that by focusing on the positives and the things I can control, I will be able to start feeling in control again.

 

Bloggers Give Back Update: I did my clicking for Greater Good and the FreeKibble sites, but did not volunteer at Sparked. We still have foster dog Howie and are moving forward on process of adopting a human child. We’re also doing a lot of cleaning up in the basement and putting together some more things to donate.

 

I have six goals for 2012. As part of the Sunday evening posts, I am tracking those goals, kind of like I do for spending, in order to hold myself accountable.

1)      Be paid for publishing one piece of fiction

Submissions so far: 2

Responses: 1 rejection 1 acceptance

I am getting very excited about the anthology I’m going to be published in.Readingthe galleys has just amped that up. And, this coming weekend, I’ll be at a retreat with my writers’ group, so more time to work on getting stuff done.

2)      Make money publishing my next art/fiction book

This is on hold for now. I’m hoping to get back to it in June.

3)      Attend FinCon12. Pay for the trip with money from allowance/side projects saved/earned BEFORE the conference starts. Goal: $600

My current balance is in the negatives. I have already bought the ticket to FinCon12.

I’m holding off on buying a plane ticket for now. I do believe I’ll end up with enough credit card points to get one without spending any money out of pocket.

4)      Become a member of Yakezie (6 month anniversary is Jan 21)

I plan to be a member of Epsilon class when the application goes up in August. I do need to make sure I’m still connecting with new challengers, though, because a lot of the challengers on my list this last time will be Yakezie Delta class members.

In order to develop relationships with new challengers, I have decided that each edition of What I’m Reading on Saturdays will now include a new challenger.

5)      Make money from my blogs.

AdSense earnings: $21.94 (They won’t send me any money until I hit $100)

6)      Be healthier

This has been a week of activity. Wednesday was dog park. Thursday we bought a Kinect and Dance Central. Friday we relaxed. Saturday was another dog park as well as putting bins in the attic (lots of lifting over my head- good exercise), plus I did a lot of walking on Saturday. Sunday was mowing the lawn and more work in the basement.

I’d say we ate healthy except that we went to Red Robin on Wednesday and had CostCo 4 meat pizza for dinner on Thursday. And Sunday we decided to get rid of all the old, stale tortilla chips we had by making nachos for dinner. So yeah, not really eating healthy this last week.

The big change I need to make this time of year is to drink more water- so that’s my goal this week- to drink at least one full water bottle’s worth of water every day at work, instead of having a second soda.

**As a note, I will be out of town next weekend, so next weekend’s Sunday Evening Post will also be a Monday morning edition.