Archive for August 6th, 2007

$300 weekend

I feel financially defeated this month already and the month has barely started. My wife’s friend had a birthday party this past Saturday and invited us downtown to celebrate with her. Since according to my wife that we never do anything fun, we had to go do this. I got my paycheck two days early so there was some money available now.

The weekend started with Friday going to the mall (I HATE MALLS!) and eating out at Subway ($13). Then we had to go shopping because I guess I needed a shirt. I got two shirts at the GAP ($62) I hope she won’t mind me wearing for at least two years. At least we went home after that.

Saturday brought the bulk of the expense. I got a haircut at a place down the street ($16) and my wife got her nails done ($40) at a salon she frequents, to her credit this is semi budgeted. Had to fill up the car with gas ($32) and got cash out of the ATM ($100) to bring with us. Drove to downtown Chicago, north side and searched for public parking for 45 minutes so we could stay with a friend (FREE!). Got some drinks ($15 from $100 cash leaving $85) and ate pizza (my friend covered it) and got ready to go out. We decided to take a cab to the lounge ($10 from cash, $75 left). This is where the fun part came in. For $35 a person, cover, drinks, included, to get into the place ($70 gone from cash, $5 bucks left). My wife and I made sure to get our money’s worth out of that though and after about 10 drinks I was good, my wife could still hold her own at 6. By now it’s roughly 2:30 in the morning downtown and we leave the bar and go to her friend’s new apartment. We decided to get some greasy food to go with our booze and I ended up using some random ATM and paid the fee ($20 cash plus $3 fee, whatever the food cost). We had to take a cab back to our friend’s apartment at 4 in the morning (used the last of cash).

Sunday my wife and I were probably slightly hung over from exercising a barely used drinking muscle but were able to function, just not very efficiently. We rolled out of my friends place around 1 in the afternoon and at lunch ($15) and then headed home. I didn’t do much of anything yesterday so I will have to do more today to make up for the loss of a weekend.

We still have bills to pay and need to keep on top of other things and now I feel down $300 starting out. I have a feeling we’re going to be eating at home all month and really watching the money situation for this month now. It is difficult for some reason for me to convey to my wife bills and expenses should be considered before other stuff, but that isn’t always the case. She still wants to move downtown but there is no way we could do this kind of thing every weekend. This month our cell phone plan is also up so that means we will be getting new phones as soon as possible. I just wish I knew how we were going to pay for them without causing a fight, but more on that later.