money in August
We’d spent too much money with our babymooning through June and July, so we declared August spend-money-on-nothing-but-food month. We understood that one exception to this rule would be the preparation of Rosie’s new bedroom. Other than that, we promised to be boring.
But we got the credit card bill today and we did a horrible job.
It turns out we spent almost $200 at Blockbuster this month. I don’t watch many movies, but we did have a 30 Rock bonanza for a week (that show isn’t so great), and Steve watches a good amount, considering we don’t have a television. And we ended up having to buy a $70 movie that we had rented in June and didn’t return on time, though we so badly didn’t want it even in our house that we just gave it back to the movie store. That expense category right there is the worst I have to report. It somehow seemed at the time that we weren’t spending money when we rented movies because we weren’t going out at night, but that’s delusional.
We spent $1,000 in the category marked “miscellaneous.” That’s depressing. It included $200 for a new ipod for Rosie because she lost the one Steve had given her in June (sigh) (the new ipod was an arrangement that went along with her swimming all the way around the lake, and Steve didn’t have the heart to make her wait until September to get her prize). It also included a $550 hospital bill from an ultrasound in June that insurance didn’t cover. The rest was mostly parking downtown and mailing out a few packages.
We spent $1,050 on groceries, which, to me, is okay, though to others it must sound awful. We hosted a few gatherings of friends and cooked for them, and we have at times four people (five if you include the baby in my belly) who need to eat. One of the eaters is a high schooler who has swim practice twice a day, one is an adult male, one is a snacky nine-year-old, and one is pregnant, so no one around here is eating for less than one. And this bill includes some items that others might get at Target, like toilet paper and aluminum foil, plus prenatal vitamins that cost $3 a day, and other vitamins, and Steve’s wine, which I longingly watched him drink. And we shop at a local grocery store that provides us quality organic food, we don’t buy Lean Cuisine or anything, we prepare everything from nearly scratch, and part of buying local quality food is it’s going to cost more than Kroger.
But if that sound like a lot, then how did we total $500 in eating out? Most of this is from our morning walks, where Steve will buy an Americano and I’ll buy a hot chocolate or tea at the (expensive, organic, local) co-op (whoa those drinks add up). Some of it includes lunches we ate out alone, he at his office and I at my studio. There are two family pizza dinners in there, but no fancy dinners out or anything.
I spent $500 on the pets: about $200 on pet food, which averages $50 a week for four pets, which really isn’t bad for quality food — plus $300 on vet bills. Both dogs were due for their yearly shots, Joon got an ear infection that still hasn’t cleared, and we go to a vet who also practices Eastern Chinese medicine on our dogs, so that costs more.
We had to spend $750 on our car: the oil change was due, we guzzled gasoline by driving up north and to Pennsylvania and back, and with all that driving we waited and waited but finally had to get three new tires.
We ended up spending $850 on home improvement: $250 on tulilp bulbs (I think this was something Steve bought in July that didn’t process until August), and $600 on Rosie’s new room to make way for the baby (non-toxic wall paint, a shelf system for her closet, a new desk and a shelf, a lamp, and new pillows and bedding.
That didn’t include our mortgage, electric and water bill, the cell phone bill for three people, health insurance ($700 reluctant dollars a month), internet access, our student loans (between me and Steve, that’s $700 of student loans per month). Life is expensive like this. No one talks about money, no one gives numbers, but I am talking about it here because, one, I feel the need to confess our Blockbuster and to-go coffee sins, and, two, because I think it’s fair to show how expensive it can be to have a family, a home, and health.
Which brings us to September. We’ve decided to do a better job at spend-money-on-nothing-but-food in September. We’re not going to go to Blockbuster even once. We’re not going to eat out ever, and we’ll make coffee at home, and Steve’s cutting out alcohol. There are some things we have to buy in September and we’re allowing for those: plane tickets for a planned trip in October; to pay someone to sand the wood trim inside our house before Steve stains it (the wood needs to be stained or it risks water damage and warping); to pay for someone to fix the electricity in the laundry and storage rooms (the lights in there haven’t turned on for two months — I’ve literally been doing laundry in the dark [though this should not be compared with dooce's national laundry saga]); to pay for someone to deep-clean the wool rugs throughout our house (it’s been two years since we bought them, and you’re supposed to wash them at least once a year as part of their upkeep or else they’ll get ruined, apparently); gifts for Rosie’s birthday; and some big hospital bills that will be coming in from other emergency ultrasounds that insurance didn’t cover (that’s a whole other story). Here’s hoping we have enough for savings in October. Blah.
