Earning my keep

Today is that glorious day of days - payday!

Oh how I love payday. I think I love it even more than the average working person, because for so many years my paydays were erratic, to say the least. I had a general idea of when they were going to be, but never really knew how much money I was going to get. Such are the paydays of the self-employed artist. At my last job I was paid on the 15th and 30th of each month, which doesn't sound confusing, but it was. When you are a planner like me, it's much easier to know that every second Friday will involve an influx of cash into your bank account.

Of course, there is a downside to knowing exactly how much money you will be receiving every second Friday. There's no surprise. No cause to daydream that this could be the week you land a speaking part in a nationally televised commercial, and thus receive a huge windfall of glorious money. Or, better yet, a part in a SERIES of nationally televised commercials, which would allow you to bring your balance back up to zero, take a vacation and consider buying real estate in Toronto. There's none of that. But I'm going to play the tortoise in this scenario and will myself to believe that slow and steady wins the race.

Anyway, payday is the perfect time to give you all a better idea of how I spend my money, without actually drawing up a little chart and filling in all the dollar figures. Believe me - it's hard enough to bare my student loan balance online, you don't need to know all the ins and outs of my financial situation. Basically I divide all of my expenses up into the two paydays I get every month. The first payday of the month is when I pay my bills and the second payday is for my rent and my subway pass. There are a few things that happen every payday: my gym payments (because they come out every two weeks), my loan payments (a big one on the first payday and a smaller one on the second), and my food/living money. That last one is what you guys will hear about. My budget (and believe me, this thing is airtight, with no room for wiggling) allows me $90 per week for groceries/sundries/fun. I can't even trust myself with the whole $180 for the two weeks - too tempting! - so I transfer half of it to my high-interest savings account until the following Friday.

So, when you see my tally of what I've spent that day at the bottom of each post, it will be money coming out of my $90 for that week. Unless I have a psychotic break and charge something to my credit card, which I promise to confess!

Therefore, today being the second payday of the month, I made a $250 payment on my loan and I started the grocery shopping. I was very tempted to nip out this afternoon and get myself a little payday treat, but after Care's lesson in confirmation bias (See the comment section of yesterday's post.), I held tight to my purse strings.

Total debt: $11,000 and change
Spent today: $20.09