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When I was going through the survey results from my first reader survey earlier in January, one of the requests I got was to start doing money diaries. I loved the idea, so I thought it would be really fun to start doing them!
For those of you who don’t know, money diaries is an idea from Refinery29 where you follow a woman around for a week and she records everything that she spends money on. I haven’t decided if I’m going to do one once a month or once a quarter, but I figured it would still be a fun series to try out. So here we go!
I kind of feel like I cheated for this week because I knew I was going to be recording it for money diaries, so I tried to spend less. But looking back on it, I realized I forgot I was tracking it part way through. So lucky for you this is a fairly
Monday
Slept in a little more than I wanted to (as always), but luckily the metro wasn’t too delayed this morning! My metro card was still loaded with my work allowance, so I haven’t had to re-load it yet this month. It seems to be going a little fast this month though. Once I get off the metro, I normally have the choice of hopping on a bus or walking for 15 minutes. Since I’ve been running a little late these past few weeks, I’ve been taking the bus to save time (this is still on my metro card too).
Once I get to work, I actually have to send out a package to my friend for her birthday! I packaged that together quickly so I can get to work and put it in my office’s outgoing mail ($13.65).
The rest of the day was actually money free! I took the metro home, ate dinner outside (the weather was beautiful!), and got some chores done.
Tuesday
Pretty similar to yesterday, metro to work, work all day, then metro to pure barre to work. One thing you might be wondering is why I haven’t mentioned morning coffee or lunch. Well, I actually bring my lunch to work every day. I just bring basic salads with crackers and some form of fruit. They’re pretty easy to throw together each day and keep me from having to spend money on my lunch every day. Plus, it forces me to eat salad. I also don’t drink coffee, so that avoids that morning habit, but I am an avid tea drinker. I actually have a drawer filled with tea at my desk, so I can just make tea in my office whenever I’m craving any. Sometimes I will treat myself and go to Starbucks though.
Back to Tuesday. This evening at pure barre, I was working one shift, taking class, and then we were having a small team get together. It was really nice because it was not only really relaxing, but it also meant I got free (and delicious) pizza and cupcakes. Could anything be better? The only downside was that since it was kind of late, I had to take an Uber home. Uber and Lyft were surge charging, so I went with Uber since it was the cheaper option ($5.26) plus, I get a $1 back if I go through Ibotta to use it!
Wednesday
Happy Valentine’s Day! Also, a complete no spending day for me! Why? Well, all I really did was go to work and then go to pure barre to work. Then, one of the girls who was taking class offered me a ride home. Win for the day!
I guess this would also be a good time to explain why I uber home from pure barre when I could easily bus or metro. By the time I leave Pure Barre, the metro timings are fairly far apart. Since I would have to switch lines, it could easily take me over an hour to get home for what should be 20 minutes. The bus is normally my go to, but after a few incidents in my neighborhood, I promised my mom that I would wait until sunset was later in the evening before I started taking the bus home. That way I wouldn’t be walking home in the dark. The nice thing is that as long as Lyft isn’t surging, it’s only a dollar or two more than the bus and less than that for the metro.
Thursday
Since it’s the day after Valentine’s Day, I had to stop at CVS this morning to pick up some candy for my office. This has kind of been a fail the last few years (my CVS flips it’s displays so quickly), but I finally won this year and got a good collection ($27.13). I also managed to pick up a few things to add to my baking collection. I also managed to leave my apartment early for the outing, so I got to work early too.
The day was super busy and I think I only made it through by guzzling tea and sampling multiple chocolates from the CVS candy selection.
The evening was a little different though. Instead of going to Pure Barre, I actually went home. There, I cleaned up my apartment a little, ate dinner outside again (what’s with all this beautiful February weather?), and then wrote my blog post for Friday. I managed to do all of that in under an hour (go me!) and then it was off to the theater! My friend Corinne and I were were seeing Something Rotten, which I’ve been so excited to see. I missed it in New York and the last tour, so I was really excited that it finally came back to DC. I took the metro there to save money ($0!) and then ended up taking the metro home since the wait was only a few minutes ($0 again!). We also chose to not buy anything there, which is pretty typical for me when I go to shows.
Friday
Okay guys, here’s the day where my spending gets fun. Off to work on the metro and then the bus again. I’m seriously tired at this point since I’ve had back to back days of nonstop calls and emails at work. Which means when I notice that all of the Presidents Day Weekend Sales are starting….I totally gave in. With some restraint, I’m still on a budget, after all. My go-to is always J.Crew, so when I notice that my favorite turtlenecks are super marked down, into my cart they go. I also grabbed the leggings that I’ve been waiting to come back in stock and a t-shirt I’ve been waiting to go on sale. There was still a rewards card on my account, so my total only comes to $96.42, which definitely could have been worse. I also order the shirt from Nordstrom that I’ve been staring at for the past few days ($39). Then my lunch break is over and it’s back to work for the afternoon.
Once 4 pm hits, my work week is finally over and….I’m off to Pure Barre to work for the evening. Have I mentioned I basically live there? After I’m done working for the evening, I decide to take a Via to the grocery store to do some shopping ($1.95). They’re out of a few things I need, but they also have a lot of what I do on sale so my total is pretty low ($16.64). It also means that I’ll need to come back on Sunday.
Oh also, I decided to take Via tonight instead of Uber or Lyft because they sent me a promotion for 5 $1.95 rides through the end of the weekend. This is cheaper than the bus, metro, uber, or Lyft, so I’ll definitely be using Via all weekend. Use my promo code dana7w6 to get $10 in ride credit or leave your email below and I can email it to you!
Once I got home, all I could really bring myself to do was make a pizza and catch up on all of the episodes of Supergirl that I’ve missed (which was more than I’ve realized).
Saturday
I had every intention of making it to a Pure Barre class this morning, but that definitely didn’t happen. I decided to just take it easy instead and have a slow lazy morning. While I was getting ready, I got a text from the family I was supposed to babysit for, cancelling because their kid was sick. Surprise! Tha just freed up my entire evening. I had planned spending the entire day on my couch reading, but now that I have movie pass, I’ve been trying to go see more movies. Since my schedule just freed up, I decided to go FINALLY see I, Tonya. The showing I wanted to go see wasn’t until 4, so I decided to clean and relax until then.
Once it was time to go to the movie, I called a Via again. Since it was basically sleeting at this point, I promised my sister I would tip the driver extra if we got to the theater safely. Luckily we did ($2.95). With Moviepass, I’ve pre-paid for all my movies, so seeing I, Tonya was basically free at this point ($0). I also still have the habit of bringing my own snacks from home, so I didn’t buy anything there either. For those of you who were wondering, I really enjoyed the movie and would definitely recommend seeing it.
From there I took another Via home ($1.95) and reheated some leftovers for dinner. After putting it off I also finally gave in and ordered Cacao powder from Amazon which I had run out of–it’s so much better than cocoa powder ($10.99). The online shopping continued and I may have finally found the bodysuit I was looking for from SheIn. I placed the order, but I won’t be charged until it arrives ($34). Then it was off to bed fairly early because I was tired and had a migraine at that point.
Sunday
On Sunday I woke up with a raging migraine at 6am. I wasn’t really sure how I was going to handle going into work at Pure Barre that morning. I debated texting around for a sub, but I realized everyone was either out of town or wasn’t going to check their phone at 6am. So I took some of my medication, went back into bed until the last possible minute. Then I headed over to the studio in a via ($1.95). I stopped by Starbucks and picked up an iced tea with the last of what was left on my gift card.
I’ll be honest, the rest of that morning was kind of a blur. The migraine started to break up, but kind of lingered throughout the rest of the day. I know I stopped by Harris Teeter after Pure Barre to pick up the items that were out of stock on Friday ($10.54). Then I also picked up the towels I wash at a nearby yoga studio in exchange for free classes. I was supposed to meet up with Heather to take blog pictures, but I ended up cancelling. Unfortunately, I just still wasn’t feeling great and I wanted to relax before I had to babysit that evening.
Once it was time to babysit, I had to take a Lyft to get there, it was kind of far out. Luckily, the parents paid me back for it, so I’m choosing to not include that in here. Does the money I made from Babysitting then cancel out all of my spending this week? I have no idea, but I’m going to say no… (+ $99). Either way, after babysitting, I basically went home and went to sleep.
Total Spent
$262.43
Total Earned
$99
So what do you think about the money diaries? Do you like it? Should I keep doing them? I’d love to hear your suggestions!
Things I Purchased This Week
