Blind spending

I have had a pleasantly busy weekend. Lots of fun things and lots of productive things. (Although never as many productive things as to actually accomplish all that needs to be done. There's just not enough hours in the day!)

Also, a lot of spending money.

I committed a cardinal budgeting sin this weekend. Rather than extracting my $90 and "living on cash," I used my debit card for my various errands, not really keeping track of what I was spending. So just before I sat down here to write this post, I was gathering up the receipts, so I can determine the damage.

But before I continue - another sin. I went out to the movies and did some grocery shopping with the boyfriend today without having any idea how much money I had left for the week. Hopefully things will even out okay.

Oh, and just a reminder, before I start to tally it all up, that I had an extra $28 in my bank account that I figured I'd need this week, plus a still had a bit of money in my wallet leftover from last week.

Here we go. Yesterday:

Trip to my beloved library. (I love living so close to a decent branch.) Returned the four magazines and the "new" book that I had taken out the week before. Everything was ONE DAY LATE! (Damn.) It was only $1.50, but I use the library because it is a free service. Must pay better attention next time.

Trip to the gym, which is like a deposit into my Health and Wellness account.

Trip to the big LCBO at Summerhill to pick something up for the going-away party I am attending Saturday night. It's so much fun to wander around that place, because it's ridiculously big. I had no idea that many different types of liquor actually existed! I find the sparkling strawberry wine that the evening's guest of honour enjoyed on New Year's and I also pick up a small bottle of fancy cherry beer for me.

(I was looking for a chocolate beer I read about recently, but they were sold out. I am really not a beer drinker at all, but I have been intrigued by fruit beers ever since I had a delicious bottle of raspberry beer at a specialty beer restaurant last summer. I inadvertently paid $14 for that yummy raspberry beer...)

Liquor store total comes to $17.90.

Then it's back to the grocery store, to pick up some supplies so I can make some hors d'oeurvres at the party. Almost $20 later...

A quick trip to the card store, since there is a major card-giving holiday fast approaching. Another $5-ish leaves my wallet.

Today, in addition to the aforementioned groceries and movie, I had to take a little trip to the drugstore for girly supplies. They were on sale, though, so I bought two boxes. Another $8-ish.

All in all, a spendy weekend. But not on anything truly tangible. The cake that I spent a small fortune making for the party was tasty, but also teeth-achingly sweet. We all suffered a bit of diabetic shock. (But I double-checked the recipe when I got home, and the icing really did call for 7.5 cups of icing sugar!) The hors d'oeurvres and the yummy wine went over well. The movie was good - Iron Man.

**Small rant: Why do people bring their small children to violent movies? It makes me so uncomfortable, particularly when there is real-life violence on screen, rather than just "superhero" violence. We wonder why kids are so desensitized to violence. Why teenage girls can drown their alcoholic mother without regret - not to mention all their friends who knew about the plot for months but never went to the police. Yet we strip children of their innocence towards violence at such a young age. I definitely saw at least two children in my close vicinity who were 5 years old or younger.

Anyway, let's see how it all shakes out after the boyfriend splits some of the groceries with me and I factor in the stuff today.

Total debt: $7560 and a bit
Spent yesterday and today: $66.37 (Yikes!)