Happy Birthday, the Money and the Math

I got a call this morning, and Ryan's new neice was born a little before 6am. Happy Birthday Madison! Now the little booties I made will finally have some feet to keep warm! I am not going with Ryan tonight to see her though, I have been sick for a week and a half with this sore throat and cough, so I don't want to chance getting the new babe sick on her first day out of the womb! Instead, I am going to my parents house to dye fabric, make a mess in my mom's kitchen and maybe get THEM sick.

So last week, I was reading Crazy Aunt Purl and she had an excel file set up for a budget. I downloaded it, and because I am a nerd sometimes (get that, a nerd that doesn't get physics or math) and thought it would be fun to track my money. I didn't really do anything with it, just saved it without adding any of my own information to the budget plan. And then Monday, when I realized the first of the month was coming and I need to get my rent figured out, I signed onto do my online banking to find my checking account had $4.53 in it. And my savings had just enough to still have money in it after I transfered enough to cover my rent check. Great. Wonderful. Superb even. That brought to my attention that I need to start being a little more careful with my money. I REALLY wish I had thought of that oh, you know, 3 years ago when I had over $3,000 in my savings account.

So I started with January, and filled in as many of the fields in the excel budget as I could. By my calculations, I spent around $500 more than I made this month. YIKES!!!! Ok, let me explain myself... I spent about $160 on (hopefully) a year's worth of contacts, about $85 on Rx's for three months, $117 on school books and my graduation fee (yes, you have to pay $90 to graduate, and that is not to pay for the diploma, I still have to buy that) and from there my explanations get a little fuzzy, not so legitimate and necessary for sustaining life as I know it. Ok, so... Mervynn's was going out of business, so I had to go. And I had to cash in on all the deals and steals, like, a new pair of tennies for $30 (they were half off!) and a couple new bras that were also 40% off. And then Ryan had a gift certificate to use at Old Navy, so I went with him and spent about $60 on a new coat, a sweater and a dressy sortof sport coat/blazer (that sounds bad, but it's very feminine and cute and I don't know when or where I'll ever wear it, but it only cost $6.97).

And that is not even counting the YARN... OH THE YARN!!!!!!!!!! Let's see, that trip I bribed myself with a couple weeks ago cost me about $45, I've been yarn stalking on Ebay a lot lately too, so in January I wracked up another $55 worth of stash items from Ebay alone. Yes, I spent almost $100 on yarn in January. I didn't include in there the $35 I spent at Elann.com to buy the yarn for the Knitting Olympics which is also my sister's birthday present. That I see as legitimate because I have a plan, it's a gift, and I resisted the temptation to keep adding items to my cart, "I'm ordering the yarn for Shannon's skirt, I might as well take a peek at their sock yarn and, ooh, this looks pretty, and oooh silk..." and so on.

So now I am officially on a budget. I will not be buying yarn in February, I will not buy shoes, I will not buy clothing. There is just one (ok, two) exceptions. February 18th is the Fiber Festival in Chelsea. There will be yarn and I have to go and I'm not promising I'll leave empty handed. In fact, I promise I will NOT leave empty handed. So that is it! No buying yarn in February, in Michigan. So that means, when Ryan and I are on vacation in North Carolina at the end of February, my yarn diet is rescinded.

Physics is still kicking my nether regions. I am really wishing I hadn't taken this class, but I have to keep movin' on it. I was pretty proud of myself last night. Usually I try to get all the way thru my homework before I call Shannon, so I can ask her all the questions at once, instead of calling her umpteen million times in the span of two hours or whatever it takes. So I got through my Lab assignment in about 2 hours, all on my own. Then moved on to my homework from the lecture portion of the class. Got that done in less than one hour and only had ONE question for Shannon! That's right, I understand Kinetic AND Potential Energy. Take that PHYSICS!!!!!!!!!! HA!!!!

This Sunday is the PuppyBowl, I know you all are as excited as I am. Mom and I will be knitting and watching the puppies chase each other around the football field (and giggling, but that's a given).