It’s important in life to set short-term goals because if you stick to those goals they will eventually lead to long-term advantages. The same goes for money because if you practice saving a little money now it will be worth a lot more in the future.
Just today I saw my parents—they came to watch our tennis match vs. Rider University. It is pretty much a guarantee that every time I see my parents they will give me cash—they are so generous, but I would never ask them for cash because I would feel too guilty. Each time I go home for Thanksgiving, winter or Easter break they give me a bit of cash right as I’m walking out the door to head back to school. Before I began budgeting my money I would have taken that money and spent it freely. It would be gone in about two weeks because I did not know how to save or spend money wisely. I guarantee that if I did not start saving money this semester, I would have spent the money my parents gave me at the mall (specifically Forever 21), on food and drinks at restaurants, on random things at the George Mason Bookstore, on the “Jamaican lady” who comes to campus with really cute jewelry, on gas and the list goes on.
Since I began to budget my money this semester, I’ve earned $300 from my parents. The first $100 came as I was getting ready to head back to Mason for spring semester; the second $100 came when I went home for a weekend in March to hang out with my family before my dad got surgery; and the third $100 came today at the match. I’m proud to say that I have not spent a dime of it. My point to all this is that little-by-little the money I’ve saved and resisted from spending will keep adding up if I stick with it.
I’ve mentioned it before, but I always make sure I put $5 into my savings each week as soon as I take out my weekly $150. In addition, if I have money left at the end of the week I will throw it into the savings, too. By the time summer comes a long I will have close to $500 saved from a semester of saving. Originally, I planned on testing my willpower with this budget just for the semester so I made the choice to not open a savings account. I didn’t open an account because I figured I wouldn’t make that much interest after a couple of months since interest rates are fewer than 2%. Now that I see how successful I can be with budgeting my money I’ve decided I want to open a savings account at my bank (Wachovia), and see how much money I can earn before the summer is over. I plan on taking it one day at a time—I’ll refrain from spending my money on frivolous items and keep focusing on saving money and being thrifty.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Gone with the Wind...or Just Gone by Wednesday
I was bad this week. I blew it. I spent $60 last week on TOMS shoes for my best friend who’s turning 21 on April 19. I had to listen to my mom nag about how spending $60 on shoes is “ridiculous.” I was able to convince her that because Heather (my best friend) and I have been friends since we were in cribs and because it’s her 21st birthday that she deserved a nice gift. Besides, TOMS shoes are made for a good cause. They donate a free pair to a child in need for every pair you buy. I decided I would make up for the shoes by taking out $20 less—so $130 instead of $150 for the week.
Well that money came and went a little too quickly. It just so happened that this past week was a week I had to spend more on groceries. In addition to the staple items like fruit, veggies and milk, I needed to stock up on more cereal, bread, tuna cans, cheese, Boca Burgers (I don’t eat meat), energy bars for tennis matches, protein powder (yeah I said it…I like to drink protein shakes), and other odds and ends of groceries to get me through the week. My Jeep, like me, also needed some nourishment—it was pretty much running on fumes so I filled it up with $30 of gas, (I normally put in $20). I had a whopping $20 before Sunday was even over.
I knew the whole week was going to be hectic starting with an hour and a half long presentation on Monday, editing a video for my Electronic News Gathering (ENG) class on Tuesday (which by the way I ended up staying in the studio editing for 7 hours), a paper due and a tennis match on Wednesday, shooting a video for my ENG class on Thursday and a tennis match on Friday. I normally eat dinner at home most nights with my roommates, but not this week. I was way too caught up writing papers and editing stories to even make it home for dinner. Which meant I had to buy food on campus. I had perfectly fresh groceries at home, but it would have taken too much time to drive home to eat. I also probably would have gotten distracted by, oh I don’t know…my comfortable bed…TV…the couch…talking to my roommates—definitely more exciting stuff, I just didn’t have the time. At any rate, that $20 was gone before I could say “Wednesday.”
It was only Wednesday and already I was out of my weekly cash. I had to charge cookie dough on my card at Safeway Wednesday night because the next day I would be shooting a consumer news report to find out where the best cookies are from on campus. I would conduct a blind taste test to find the answer, but the cookie dough I bought at Safeway were part of a little “twist” I decided to throw in my story to see if students didn’t choose campus cookies at all and instead chose mine. The next day, the day of the shoot, was even worse. I had to spend $10 on an 80-minute mini-DV tape for my camera, and 3 cookies from Starbucks, Freshens, and Jazzman’s Cafe, which totaled approximately $18. Charging all of this on my card was frustrating. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you’re trying so hard to watch how much you spend—the first dollar spent over your limit feels like you actually spent $100 over. It’s not a good feeling at all. I know I’m new at budgeting and have not yet mastered all the tricks of the trade, but each new week offers another lesson learned. This week I suppose I’ll just choose to watch TV on the couch with my roommates over getting good grades. :-)
Well that money came and went a little too quickly. It just so happened that this past week was a week I had to spend more on groceries. In addition to the staple items like fruit, veggies and milk, I needed to stock up on more cereal, bread, tuna cans, cheese, Boca Burgers (I don’t eat meat), energy bars for tennis matches, protein powder (yeah I said it…I like to drink protein shakes), and other odds and ends of groceries to get me through the week. My Jeep, like me, also needed some nourishment—it was pretty much running on fumes so I filled it up with $30 of gas, (I normally put in $20). I had a whopping $20 before Sunday was even over.
I knew the whole week was going to be hectic starting with an hour and a half long presentation on Monday, editing a video for my Electronic News Gathering (ENG) class on Tuesday (which by the way I ended up staying in the studio editing for 7 hours), a paper due and a tennis match on Wednesday, shooting a video for my ENG class on Thursday and a tennis match on Friday. I normally eat dinner at home most nights with my roommates, but not this week. I was way too caught up writing papers and editing stories to even make it home for dinner. Which meant I had to buy food on campus. I had perfectly fresh groceries at home, but it would have taken too much time to drive home to eat. I also probably would have gotten distracted by, oh I don’t know…my comfortable bed…TV…the couch…talking to my roommates—definitely more exciting stuff, I just didn’t have the time. At any rate, that $20 was gone before I could say “Wednesday.”
It was only Wednesday and already I was out of my weekly cash. I had to charge cookie dough on my card at Safeway Wednesday night because the next day I would be shooting a consumer news report to find out where the best cookies are from on campus. I would conduct a blind taste test to find the answer, but the cookie dough I bought at Safeway were part of a little “twist” I decided to throw in my story to see if students didn’t choose campus cookies at all and instead chose mine. The next day, the day of the shoot, was even worse. I had to spend $10 on an 80-minute mini-DV tape for my camera, and 3 cookies from Starbucks, Freshens, and Jazzman’s Cafe, which totaled approximately $18. Charging all of this on my card was frustrating. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you’re trying so hard to watch how much you spend—the first dollar spent over your limit feels like you actually spent $100 over. It’s not a good feeling at all. I know I’m new at budgeting and have not yet mastered all the tricks of the trade, but each new week offers another lesson learned. This week I suppose I’ll just choose to watch TV on the couch with my roommates over getting good grades. :-)
Monday, March 29, 2010
Getting My Feet Wet
So I got to thinking about what I wrote last week—this whole saving up for a weekend vacation to Catalina Island and I thought, “Wow, I sound like a spoiled little brat!” Here I am writing each week about saving money and being thrifty, meanwhile a main incentive for me to save money is so I can blow close to all of it on a weekend in paradise. How many adults do you know who can go on vacation, spend there money wining, dining, boating and snorkeling, come home broke and still be OK? None that I know of, that’s for sure! But see the thing is, I’m in a completely different situation and I have not completely realized until recently, but it’s one that is necessary to recognize in order to understand my perspective on saving money.
See, I have all the support I could ever want or need from my parents. My parents didn’t even pester me (too much) about spending less—I chose on my own to stop using my debit card. In addition, nearly all of my college expenses are paid for by my athletic scholarship for tennis. Being on a scholarship also lessens the burden for my parents to pay for out-of-state tuition. Trust me, it was not easy to earn this scholarship, I had to work my butt off and sacrifice a lot when I was in middle school and high school. But if I hadn’t put in the work back then, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Athletes are not just dumb jocks—in fact that notion might as well just be put to rest because it is so far from the truth. I can specifically speak for the tennis team when I say that being “dumb” would get us as much as a friendly, “thanks for showing your interest in this team, but get your grades up and better luck next time.” Of course this is the reason the women’s tennis team has one of the highest G.P.A’s in the athletic program. On top of maintaining good grades (which by the way if our grades slip we are assigned mandatory study hall hours), we practice three hours a day after a long day of classes—except for the winter when it’s too cold to play outside so we practice at 6 a.m., and then go to class. We also have a jam-packed schedule of competitions throughout the entire year even though our main season is technically spring. It literally feels like there is never any down time, so to have a job on top of a schedule like that is almost impossible.
I consider myself a determined, hard worker like the majority of student-athletes at Mason and I would love to have a job if I had any more time, but I simply do not. I understand that some people it may think I’m spoiled for getting $150 each week. I am aware that at the end of all this budgeting, if I have nothing saved I will still be OK. I won’t have to take out a loan or file for bankruptcy. I will still be taken care of by my parents. The important lesson to learn after all is said and done however, is that it is the fact that I want to budget my money and I don’t just want to take, take, take from my parents. I’ve realized early on that this money will not always be there for me and that this is a unique time in my life when I still have this safety net. At least I won’t be diving head first into the real world because I am trying my best to start by getting feet wet.
See, I have all the support I could ever want or need from my parents. My parents didn’t even pester me (too much) about spending less—I chose on my own to stop using my debit card. In addition, nearly all of my college expenses are paid for by my athletic scholarship for tennis. Being on a scholarship also lessens the burden for my parents to pay for out-of-state tuition. Trust me, it was not easy to earn this scholarship, I had to work my butt off and sacrifice a lot when I was in middle school and high school. But if I hadn’t put in the work back then, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Athletes are not just dumb jocks—in fact that notion might as well just be put to rest because it is so far from the truth. I can specifically speak for the tennis team when I say that being “dumb” would get us as much as a friendly, “thanks for showing your interest in this team, but get your grades up and better luck next time.” Of course this is the reason the women’s tennis team has one of the highest G.P.A’s in the athletic program. On top of maintaining good grades (which by the way if our grades slip we are assigned mandatory study hall hours), we practice three hours a day after a long day of classes—except for the winter when it’s too cold to play outside so we practice at 6 a.m., and then go to class. We also have a jam-packed schedule of competitions throughout the entire year even though our main season is technically spring. It literally feels like there is never any down time, so to have a job on top of a schedule like that is almost impossible.
I consider myself a determined, hard worker like the majority of student-athletes at Mason and I would love to have a job if I had any more time, but I simply do not. I understand that some people it may think I’m spoiled for getting $150 each week. I am aware that at the end of all this budgeting, if I have nothing saved I will still be OK. I won’t have to take out a loan or file for bankruptcy. I will still be taken care of by my parents. The important lesson to learn after all is said and done however, is that it is the fact that I want to budget my money and I don’t just want to take, take, take from my parents. I’ve realized early on that this money will not always be there for me and that this is a unique time in my life when I still have this safety net. At least I won’t be diving head first into the real world because I am trying my best to start by getting feet wet.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Summer Vacation
There is something I haven’t yet talked about as to why I decided to start budgeting and saving my money this semester. In May I will be heading to Los Angeles to intern for my second summer in a row at Dick Clark Productions. Needless to say the cost of living in LA is outrageous. The cost includes a round-trip flight from Philadelphia (my home airport) to LAX, an apartment, groceries, transportation money and entertainment… just to name a few. So each week I’ve been putting $5 into my savings immediately after I take out my weekly $150. I carefully spend only the money I need to spend on groceries, gas every other week, cable every month, weekend fun, and any other small items that I purchase on campus each day like milk, coffee, and fruit, etc. At the end of the week I take what money I have left and I put it in my Los Angeles summer fund. There have been weeks when I’ve had $50 left, some when I’ve only had $5 and others I’ve had none at all. But I always have the $5 that I put in the fund at the beginning of the week.
I am fortunate enough to have parents who want to take care of me while I am still in college. They want to cover my rent and flights to-and-from LA, but I will have to budget my money each week in order to afford groceries and bus transportation each day. Another aspect of the summer that I am saving up for is a weekend getaway with my boyfriend to Catalina Island. We’ve discussed a few options: a cruise from Tampa, FL to the Caribbean, a cruise up the west coast, a road trip to Seattle and a weekend on Catalina Island. Once we mulled over the idea of Catalina Island, it was hard to say no.
We’ve already worked out our expenses so that we can camp for 3 days and 2 nights for under $350. The ferry ride from Newport Beach, CA to Catalina Island is $68 per person, snorkeling at lover’s cove is $39 per person, parasailing at 900ft. is $35 per person, and nine holes of golf, including the green fee, pull cart, balls, and full set of rental clubs is only $65 per person. As for housing, we are opting for camping because the way we see it, there is no reason to be indoors when you’re on an island like Catalina! Renting a 2-person tent in the summer months is only $10; a sleeping bag with a pad is $12, and a lantern with propane and a bundle of wood cost only $20. That brings us to a total of $250. All we have left is the cost of meals and we already plan on bringing small items that we can cook under a fire outside of our tent. Don’t get me wrong though, we will absolutely spend money on the outstanding seafood, authentic Mexican, ice cream and pizzerias that Catalina Island has to offer.
Where are you going on vacation this summer? Have you thought about the activities you’ll do, expenses, and ways you want to save?
I am fortunate enough to have parents who want to take care of me while I am still in college. They want to cover my rent and flights to-and-from LA, but I will have to budget my money each week in order to afford groceries and bus transportation each day. Another aspect of the summer that I am saving up for is a weekend getaway with my boyfriend to Catalina Island. We’ve discussed a few options: a cruise from Tampa, FL to the Caribbean, a cruise up the west coast, a road trip to Seattle and a weekend on Catalina Island. Once we mulled over the idea of Catalina Island, it was hard to say no.
We’ve already worked out our expenses so that we can camp for 3 days and 2 nights for under $350. The ferry ride from Newport Beach, CA to Catalina Island is $68 per person, snorkeling at lover’s cove is $39 per person, parasailing at 900ft. is $35 per person, and nine holes of golf, including the green fee, pull cart, balls, and full set of rental clubs is only $65 per person. As for housing, we are opting for camping because the way we see it, there is no reason to be indoors when you’re on an island like Catalina! Renting a 2-person tent in the summer months is only $10; a sleeping bag with a pad is $12, and a lantern with propane and a bundle of wood cost only $20. That brings us to a total of $250. All we have left is the cost of meals and we already plan on bringing small items that we can cook under a fire outside of our tent. Don’t get me wrong though, we will absolutely spend money on the outstanding seafood, authentic Mexican, ice cream and pizzerias that Catalina Island has to offer.
Where are you going on vacation this summer? Have you thought about the activities you’ll do, expenses, and ways you want to save?
Monday, March 15, 2010
A Spring Break From Spending
It was an easy week in the world of budgeting. The tennis team went on a spring break trip to Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. I took out my usual $150 on Saturday before our early departure Sunday morning, and the trip was already looking bright when our coach gave us $30. We were to spend the money on breakfast that morning and breakfast food for the rest of the week. After breakfast, we drove south on the open road and in no time it was already lunchtime.
We stopped at Subway and our lunch bill was again taken care of by our coach—making the trip look even brighter. We arrived in South Carolina around 5 p.m.; we went out for dinner because we hadn’t bought any groceries and in case you haven’t noticed a pattern, our dinner was paid for, too. All university-sponsored athletic trips are typically always taken care of meal-wise, but we did have a limit this week since we’d be gone so long. Every meal wouldn’t be paid for, but for all that was paid for definitely helped my budget.
I spent my $30 on groceries the first night, but even though it wasn’t my own, I still spent my money wisely. I purchases two boxes of Special K cereal—one box of Red Berries and one box of Blueberry; Honey Nut flavored Special K cereal bars; Fat Free Lactaid milk; a bag of grapes; four oranges; and six bananas. I also covered the cost of Piggly Wiggly brand flip-flops for my teammate who forgot to bring her own. With a week ahead of university-sponsored meals and only three meals of our own to cover, I knew this week would be a piece of cake to get through.
We were only left alone to pay for lunch on Monday and Thursday and dinner on Wednesday. Except one of my teammate’s parents came into town and took us out to dinner at an amazing Italian restaurant on Wednesday night—they were so gracious.
Rewind back to Wednesday afternoon and that’s when the personal spending happened. Seven of us girls made our way down to the shops by the beach and also to the infamous tiki hut that sits itself right on the sand next to the beach volleyball courts. It was nice and sunny when we first arrived so we sat ourselves under an umbrella at the tiki hut and ordered some smoothies—all non-alcoholic of course since we were on an athletic trip. There was an assortment of flavors we wanted to try and they were rather small in size so each of us ended up ordering four smoothies. My grand total was only $26—and it was well worth it!
It started to get cold and rainy, as we were finishing up at the tiki hut, so we decided to walk around the shops. I browsed for a bit and chose to splurge on a $25 tie-dye hooded sweatshirt that reads: Hilton Head Island.
I have to admit—I’m very proud with how much money I saved: $99, the most I’ve ever had at the end of a week since my budget started. And when I got home late Saturday night, I took that $99, and put it right into the summer vacation fund.
We stopped at Subway and our lunch bill was again taken care of by our coach—making the trip look even brighter. We arrived in South Carolina around 5 p.m.; we went out for dinner because we hadn’t bought any groceries and in case you haven’t noticed a pattern, our dinner was paid for, too. All university-sponsored athletic trips are typically always taken care of meal-wise, but we did have a limit this week since we’d be gone so long. Every meal wouldn’t be paid for, but for all that was paid for definitely helped my budget.
I spent my $30 on groceries the first night, but even though it wasn’t my own, I still spent my money wisely. I purchases two boxes of Special K cereal—one box of Red Berries and one box of Blueberry; Honey Nut flavored Special K cereal bars; Fat Free Lactaid milk; a bag of grapes; four oranges; and six bananas. I also covered the cost of Piggly Wiggly brand flip-flops for my teammate who forgot to bring her own. With a week ahead of university-sponsored meals and only three meals of our own to cover, I knew this week would be a piece of cake to get through.
We were only left alone to pay for lunch on Monday and Thursday and dinner on Wednesday. Except one of my teammate’s parents came into town and took us out to dinner at an amazing Italian restaurant on Wednesday night—they were so gracious.
Rewind back to Wednesday afternoon and that’s when the personal spending happened. Seven of us girls made our way down to the shops by the beach and also to the infamous tiki hut that sits itself right on the sand next to the beach volleyball courts. It was nice and sunny when we first arrived so we sat ourselves under an umbrella at the tiki hut and ordered some smoothies—all non-alcoholic of course since we were on an athletic trip. There was an assortment of flavors we wanted to try and they were rather small in size so each of us ended up ordering four smoothies. My grand total was only $26—and it was well worth it!
It started to get cold and rainy, as we were finishing up at the tiki hut, so we decided to walk around the shops. I browsed for a bit and chose to splurge on a $25 tie-dye hooded sweatshirt that reads: Hilton Head Island.
I have to admit—I’m very proud with how much money I saved: $99, the most I’ve ever had at the end of a week since my budget started. And when I got home late Saturday night, I took that $99, and put it right into the summer vacation fund.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Bet Your Bottom Dollar...That Tomorrow...I Will Save
I have to confess, this whole budgeting thing is way harder than I thought it would be. It could be that I have just become so obsessive about not spending money that when it comes down to the wire and I only have $5 left, I panic.
My boyfriend was in town this past week and that is one of the rare times I am able to truly let loose and relax. When he is in town, I don’t typically rush, write to-do lists, write updated to-do lists, and spend a long time at the gym, stress about homework, extra-curricular activities or tennis. But this is the first time he has been in town since I began this budget—and looking back I realize that I wasn’t obsessing over spending my money wisely, either.
I went over my budget by $78.58 plus delved $45 deep into my summer savings for my gas-guzzling Jeep Cherokee in order to make it home to Pennsylvania tomorrow for a family weekend.
It felt wrong to go over my budget in light of this blog. I am supposed to be teaching people ways to save money, but this past weekend made me feel like a fraud. So what I’ve done is gone through my receipts that I saved, and in an attempt to let others learn from my mistakes I have thought of ways I could have avoided spending too much. In some cases though I don’t regret having spent the money…there just could have been cheaper options.
1.) Went to Lucky Strike, a fancy bowling alley in D.C with sister and boyfriend: $36.63.
•Why didn’t we just eat dinner at home? We had plenty of groceries.
•Three whiskey sours—although they did help my bowling game, did not help with saving money.
2.) Throwing random candy into my boyfriend’s Valentine’s gift bag was definitely a necessity.
•However, I could have gone to the Dollar Store and gotten that bag of M&Ms, a Kit-Kat Bar, Sweethearts, Snickers and Skittles for $5. Instead I spent $10.26 in a convenience store.
•Please don’t think I’m cheap. It’s just little things like this that I am noticing that make a difference.
3.) A smoothie at Freshens: $4.48
•I ordered it because I was super hungry after conditioning with my team, but now I realize that a cup of some unidentified fruit juice, frozen berries and ice do not add up to $4.48!
•I should have waited until I got home to snack on something I already owned.
•The smoothie wasn’t even that good.
4.) But I didn’t learn to snack at home yet. I spent another $2.21 on cereal the next day for lunch.
•I have cereal at home. I could have packed a lunch, but I wasn’t thinking.
•I know $2.21 really is not a lot, but in the end all of these additional charges add up.
5.) Driving to the airport, D.C and back twice, around town and to the airport again: $25.00.
•This charge on my credit card brought me to the grand total of $78.58 over budget.
•A simple solution would have been taking the metro to and from D.C.
•More carpooling or walking could have sufficed for our local journeys.
•I was way too excited to pick my boyfriend up at the airport so I wouldn’t have changed that. Although, I wouldn’t have minded never driving him back to the airport to leave…I bet that could have saved me a good $3.00 on gas!
I promise I will try my hardest not to give in again. This is all a learning process and I am prepared for ups and downs. Right now I am very excited to get back on track with my budgeting. I have a plan to take out less, probably about $100 rather than $150 a week, until I have made up for this past week’s mishaps.
My boyfriend was in town this past week and that is one of the rare times I am able to truly let loose and relax. When he is in town, I don’t typically rush, write to-do lists, write updated to-do lists, and spend a long time at the gym, stress about homework, extra-curricular activities or tennis. But this is the first time he has been in town since I began this budget—and looking back I realize that I wasn’t obsessing over spending my money wisely, either.
I went over my budget by $78.58 plus delved $45 deep into my summer savings for my gas-guzzling Jeep Cherokee in order to make it home to Pennsylvania tomorrow for a family weekend.
It felt wrong to go over my budget in light of this blog. I am supposed to be teaching people ways to save money, but this past weekend made me feel like a fraud. So what I’ve done is gone through my receipts that I saved, and in an attempt to let others learn from my mistakes I have thought of ways I could have avoided spending too much. In some cases though I don’t regret having spent the money…there just could have been cheaper options.
1.) Went to Lucky Strike, a fancy bowling alley in D.C with sister and boyfriend: $36.63.
•Why didn’t we just eat dinner at home? We had plenty of groceries.
•Three whiskey sours—although they did help my bowling game, did not help with saving money.
2.) Throwing random candy into my boyfriend’s Valentine’s gift bag was definitely a necessity.
•However, I could have gone to the Dollar Store and gotten that bag of M&Ms, a Kit-Kat Bar, Sweethearts, Snickers and Skittles for $5. Instead I spent $10.26 in a convenience store.
•Please don’t think I’m cheap. It’s just little things like this that I am noticing that make a difference.
3.) A smoothie at Freshens: $4.48
•I ordered it because I was super hungry after conditioning with my team, but now I realize that a cup of some unidentified fruit juice, frozen berries and ice do not add up to $4.48!
•I should have waited until I got home to snack on something I already owned.
•The smoothie wasn’t even that good.
4.) But I didn’t learn to snack at home yet. I spent another $2.21 on cereal the next day for lunch.
•I have cereal at home. I could have packed a lunch, but I wasn’t thinking.
•I know $2.21 really is not a lot, but in the end all of these additional charges add up.
5.) Driving to the airport, D.C and back twice, around town and to the airport again: $25.00.
•This charge on my credit card brought me to the grand total of $78.58 over budget.
•A simple solution would have been taking the metro to and from D.C.
•More carpooling or walking could have sufficed for our local journeys.
•I was way too excited to pick my boyfriend up at the airport so I wouldn’t have changed that. Although, I wouldn’t have minded never driving him back to the airport to leave…I bet that could have saved me a good $3.00 on gas!
I promise I will try my hardest not to give in again. This is all a learning process and I am prepared for ups and downs. Right now I am very excited to get back on track with my budgeting. I have a plan to take out less, probably about $100 rather than $150 a week, until I have made up for this past week’s mishaps.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Love Doesn't Cost A Thing
Just because you're in a relationship does not mean you have to spend a lot of money on your significant other in order to show that you care.
Constantly buying material goods like: clothing, jewelry, shoes, cars, etc. are all great presents, but at the end of the day--are any of those items necessary? Will you truly get satisfaction out of the latest Jessica Simpson heels from Nordstrom's that your boyfriend bought you for Valentine's Day? If your answer is yes, then you probably aren't interested in this blog.
Receiving inexpensive gifts from your partner doesn’t mean they love you any less. Perhaps the reason they buy you material goods in the first place is because they are too scared to get creative. Buying something that's already a finished product like clothing or jewelry is safe. Whereas creating something from scratch can be intimidating, especially if you are testing your "creative juices" for the first time.
But the beautiful thing about getting creative is that you are the inventor and no one can tell you what you've created is wrong.
A good place to start is by collecting memorabilia from your relationship. Think in terms of movie ticket stubs, pictures, programs from plays you’ve seen together and images that remind you of them. If your partner has ever been written about or photographed in a newspaper, those are also great items to collect. After you’ve gathered a substantial amount of items you’ll be able to organize a scrapbook filled with images that symbolize your partner. Anyone’s heart would melt if they saw how someone took so much time to put something like a scrapbook together.
If your partner loves to cook and experiment with food, search around the internet for quirky recipes that you think they would be interested in making and put together a personal cookbook.
You also can’t fail by going to a local arts and crafting store like A.C. Moore. There you can finds hundreds of crafty items from designing glass vases, t-shirts, wreaths, pictures, mirrors, clocks, baskets, drawings, paintings and much more. Items at arts and crafting stores can be made from scratch or can be in pre-packaged “tool kits.” For example, if you want to tie-dye a shirt you can buy the shirt and paint separately, or you can by a tie-dying kit, which includes everything plus directions to make the process easier for you. This means there are no excuses for not knowing how to be creative.
Recently, I was blown away by the creativity of my boyfriend who gave me pillowcases as a present. At first I was confused about why he would give me such a random gift. Then when I unfolded them I saw drawings done in fabric-marker on each pillowcase so I laid them out on the ground. The first pillowcase was a drawing of a stick-figure boy talking into a can tied to a string. The string flows to the end of the pillowcase and continues onto the second pillowcase and leads to a drawing of a stick-figure girl holding a can to her ear. My boyfriend and I have a long-distance relationship right now and talking on the phone at night before we go to sleep is a big ritual of ours. These pillowcases could not have symbolized our late-night “pillow-talk” conversations any better.
You see once you get the hang of thinking about your significant other in light of who they are inside, what their personality is and what their interests are, you will have a better eye for grabbing onto the things that have a lot of meaning in your relationship. Material items can be a nice gesture on occasion, but it is the time you put into what you give to your partner and the thought that counts much more than the price tag.
Constantly buying material goods like: clothing, jewelry, shoes, cars, etc. are all great presents, but at the end of the day--are any of those items necessary? Will you truly get satisfaction out of the latest Jessica Simpson heels from Nordstrom's that your boyfriend bought you for Valentine's Day? If your answer is yes, then you probably aren't interested in this blog.
Receiving inexpensive gifts from your partner doesn’t mean they love you any less. Perhaps the reason they buy you material goods in the first place is because they are too scared to get creative. Buying something that's already a finished product like clothing or jewelry is safe. Whereas creating something from scratch can be intimidating, especially if you are testing your "creative juices" for the first time.
But the beautiful thing about getting creative is that you are the inventor and no one can tell you what you've created is wrong.
A good place to start is by collecting memorabilia from your relationship. Think in terms of movie ticket stubs, pictures, programs from plays you’ve seen together and images that remind you of them. If your partner has ever been written about or photographed in a newspaper, those are also great items to collect. After you’ve gathered a substantial amount of items you’ll be able to organize a scrapbook filled with images that symbolize your partner. Anyone’s heart would melt if they saw how someone took so much time to put something like a scrapbook together.
If your partner loves to cook and experiment with food, search around the internet for quirky recipes that you think they would be interested in making and put together a personal cookbook.
You also can’t fail by going to a local arts and crafting store like A.C. Moore. There you can finds hundreds of crafty items from designing glass vases, t-shirts, wreaths, pictures, mirrors, clocks, baskets, drawings, paintings and much more. Items at arts and crafting stores can be made from scratch or can be in pre-packaged “tool kits.” For example, if you want to tie-dye a shirt you can buy the shirt and paint separately, or you can by a tie-dying kit, which includes everything plus directions to make the process easier for you. This means there are no excuses for not knowing how to be creative.
Recently, I was blown away by the creativity of my boyfriend who gave me pillowcases as a present. At first I was confused about why he would give me such a random gift. Then when I unfolded them I saw drawings done in fabric-marker on each pillowcase so I laid them out on the ground. The first pillowcase was a drawing of a stick-figure boy talking into a can tied to a string. The string flows to the end of the pillowcase and continues onto the second pillowcase and leads to a drawing of a stick-figure girl holding a can to her ear. My boyfriend and I have a long-distance relationship right now and talking on the phone at night before we go to sleep is a big ritual of ours. These pillowcases could not have symbolized our late-night “pillow-talk” conversations any better.
You see once you get the hang of thinking about your significant other in light of who they are inside, what their personality is and what their interests are, you will have a better eye for grabbing onto the things that have a lot of meaning in your relationship. Material items can be a nice gesture on occasion, but it is the time you put into what you give to your partner and the thought that counts much more than the price tag.
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