I wish I could regale you stories of how I tightened my belt, found some magic way of not overspending, or read some great money guide to help me out but the reality of the sitation is much less exciting. When I came back from San Francisco near the end of September, I discovered after a little checkbook balancing that I was broke! Having the same amount of money in your budget as you have in your bank account is a fantastic way to not overspend. So basically, less money, less problems.
Whatever, I’m celebrating anyway. After a carefree September that saw me spend all I wanted, I slashed my budget hard in October. Every big category took a hit and my new monthly budget was almost $400 less than my previous one. So not only did I come under budget, I did it with a much lower budget overall.
Sure, I still spent 130% over on dining out, 135% on snacks, and 145% on playing, but since I didn’t go anywhere in October, only 10% of the travel budget was spent (a LIRR ticket to Queens), nothing was spent on household or gifts, and I basically bought no groceries. In fact, my sandwich diet went into full effect. So, one of the delis down the block from me is pretty well known as having amazing sandwiches. Eddie Huang even mentions it in his book, and Farmer in the Deli is top notch. For five bucks you get a huge sandwich with an incredible amount of meat. Sometimes I hear people in line exclaiming out loud at how much meat goes into the sandwich. Mary and I have had conversations about why this deli’s sandwiches are so much better. Fresh ingredients, big portions, perfect bread, that’s all it takes really. So basically I was on sandwich diet a lot, which saved a ton of money.
Unfortunately my taxi bill is somehow at 160%. That’s just six rides but I’m too old to not just jump in a cab when necessary. But now I’m tracking where the hell I’m going on these rides. Mostly it’s when I’m in a rush or in-between Brooklyn I think. I dunno, fifteen dollars or so to get home quickly is never a bad trade off I suppose.
Since July I’ve been tracking what I eat everyday as a separate calendar in Google Calendar. I think I mentioned it back then. Anyway, here’s my October food calendar. Take a close look at the last week. Basically in order to fit under my budget, I took that week of October off. From life. I ate at home, I didn’t go anywhere, I refused to re-up my Metrocard even, all to insure that AMR would outpace me and take the month. All my hard work paid off and now I’m not a Budget Club winner (again).
Also, since MoviePass ran out, I’ve been looking for a way to get a new one. Unfortunately, now I’d have to pony up a whole year’s subscription in advance, which is like $450. Without free movies to jump into, I’m a lost soul. I tracked how many movies I paid for this month and it’s clearly way worth it for me to get one when I have the wiggle room. Even though I paid for five movies, I did watch eight though, as I just hopped a few times to get value out of my single ticket. Living the dream people, living the dream. Anyway, now I’m officially at a broke stage where I can only spend as much as my budget — technically my budget is a few hundred over what I make actually, so that’ll be a problem. I’m predicting a banner November and December for Budget Club as I finish off the year strong, with my bank account at a nice round zero dollars... Note: this is the only month where my biggest expense wasn't in triple digits, and all top five expenses were on food! I guess that is a semi-victory.
- ATM Visits: Six, once with fees
- Dining out: Thirty one times, high of $50, average of $21
- Snacks: Eighteen, high of $13, average of $7.50
- Cabs: Six, average of $13
- Shopping: Earrings, street trinkets, Kid Robot toy, X-Men comic book, iTunes app
- Play: AAWW Pageturner, Bronx Zoo, comedy show, R-Bar, karoake, 90s R&B Singalong, five movies
- Biggest expenses: Ramen ($50), Korean food ($45), Olea brunch ($44), Ippudo ($40), Thai food ($35)
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