Looking back: Did I really use money wisely or was it just my imagination

I had been reading Trent's blog The Simple Dollar, when the idea of doing this exercise struck me. Over the last year I have grown to be much more careful with my money and wary of wasteful expenses...or so I think. I am going to put this notion to test. I'm going to look at all the things that I bought this year, that are over 50$. And see if I have just bought things that are useful, or I have also collected some junk. I can already see that it is going to be fun. It will be easy to do this exercise because I usually jot down all my expenses, with a short note on what item that money was spent on. If I have time, I'll also try to evaluate the expenditures between $25 and $50, but for now, I'm sticking with $50 limit. Let's see...this is going to be interesting.

January expenses over 50$

Breakfast bar - being used almost daily
my shoes - used almost daily - now worn out
BEB's hoody - impulse buy - but used quite a few times

February

BEB's jacket - Used it a lot last winter, took it to Lake Tahoe trip
My training pants - Currently using them a lot in gym
BEB's Jeans - Has been wearing them day in and day out

March

My bag - BEB bought it as a gift for me, the most expensive bag I've ever had. I had used it a lot during India trip.

April

Patio set - Have not used it as much as I would have liked and summer is almost over.

Sewing machine - Not used it a lot, although I sew a skirt and a bag and repaired a couple of clothes. So its not a total waste but could have been used better.

May

My clothes - I consider it money well spent. I have never felt the dearth of clothes after that shopping. And I love the clothes I bought then, am wearing them everyday to work.

June

Food Processor - This was a long pending item, but we still bought it on impulse. Although we use it daily. I still feel that we overpaid on this item. Lesson learned - never go to a store when you're to exhausted to compare and check.

GPS - the verdict is still out on this one. We do use it when we travel out of the city and on those rare ocassions its a life-saver.

Bed - It was a delayed purchase that we should have made an year ago. But I couldn't be happier when we finally bought it. Its good.

July

Sofa - This may get the award of best purchase of the year. We bought a very lightly used one and the price at which we'd snagged never fails to amaze people. We spend most of our time at home on it and we just love it.

Biking gear - We used it for a month but then we started going to the gym, instead of biking and now it is not being used that much.

August

My clothes - These were solely want based purchases, but I have been wanting to buy these kind of clothes for almost 6 months, and now that I have them, I just love wearing them. Pls I got them at a super low price from the clearance racks. I can't classify these as bad purchase.

September

Gym membership - so far so good. We have been going almost daily.
Bathroom accessories - This is also one of those "nice to have" purchases. We didn't really need them, but then I got tired of our dull looking bathroom, so we just went ahead and got them.


The verdict - Except for the patio set, there isn't much that I can classify as bad investment. So I can pat my back on this one and can reassure myself that I have gotten better with money.

Savings: How I stay motivated in face of financial mishaps

Last month while we were driving on a freeway a stray pebble hit our windshield and left a big gaping hole. It cost us 225$ in repairs.

Last month was also the month when we saved roughly 10$ by increasing the gaps between our laundry cycles and line-drying the clothes in our yard. We also saved about 10$ in movie subscriptions by borrowing dvd(s) from city library instead of paying for a streaming service.

It was easy to laugh at these savings in the face of this mishap which cost us almost equal to the yearly savings we'll get from these two changes, provided we continue to keep doing them through the year. I used to despair at these happenings and think that "There goes all my effort and time...in one single awful event..." I used to consider abandoning all these snow-flaking ideas and also abandoned many of them until I begun to put things into perspective. It finally dawned on me that snow-flaking or not, that pebble could still hit our windshield and it would still cost 225 bucks. The only difference would be that right now I have 20 bucks of snow-flakes stashed somewhere, which will soften the blow a bit for me.

Life happens, and so do things. It doesn't matter whether you've been saving or blowing money like the currency will be discontinued tomorrow. Even if your savings wont be always enough to bail you out of the situation, it will help soften the blow, at the very least you can take comfort in the fact that you did all you could to avert the situation. I think the effort and time invested in saving money is well worth it.

Outstanding money

As I exchanged emails with various people who owe me money or are responsible for the payment of my money, I realized that I have quite a few outstanding $ here and there. Just thought of documenting it all as a reference for myself. So lets see...

1) A couple thousands from my company ( No this is separate from the paycheck)
2) An outstanding bonus payment, again from my company
3) IRS Tax rebate money
4) BEB's forthcoming raise (ok, this is part of the paycheck, but this would be additional income for us)
4) Walgreens MIR card ( A small amount but still...)
5) Online survey payment (Again a very small amount)

On any other occasion, I wouldn't think much of it and just regard it as money being saved
by others on my behalf but right now we really need all the resources we have for that big purchase in India and other expenses associated with India trip. Since there's not much that I can do about it, I'll just wait and watch my checking account like a hawk for any signs of incoming funds.