Saturday, May 29, 2010

And welcome! -- plus a Frugal Fail

OK, I fixed it. I fixed the problems created by me being a moron. I fixed it all. And here we are.

Let's get things started off right with my latest Frugal Fail.

First of all, it's not like I'm TRYING to have frugal fails. Apparently it's just how I roll.

So today's is in the form of me trying to be sneaky to myself and get around the budget.

I think everyone does it in some way, really. This is how I do it.

1. I come close to exceeding my grocery budget. But I want to eat steak for memorial day. Good steak. Delicious steak. Expensive steak.
2. I buy the steak anyway (on the credit card ... frugal fail step number one).
3. I decide that really this steak isn't a GROCERY item, it's an ENTERTAINMENT item, so we're still good! (But that's a lie. You know it and I know. The only one that doesn't know it is the steak. Which was really really tasty. For the record).

So let's go over the first big mistake: taking out the credit card.

It's a slippery slope, really. It isn't that we don't have the money to cover $20 in steak as a treat. It's that if we take out the credit card for this, "just this once," what will take it out for later?

Second, I made excuses for my spending. It's that I shouldn't spend on it as a treat, I should cowboy up as to what I'm doing.

It's not what we did  - buy steak -- that was "eh" on the frugal scale. It was HOW we did it.

Maybe it's time to alter the budget? Or time to create a new budget line for "fancy food on holidays." .. I just know there is a better way than THIS way.
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Quick training update: with three weeks to the triathlon I'm looking at crunch time. As in ... I need to get in the lake for a practice swim in the wetsuit, and pronto. That'll be tomorrow. Eeeeee. It'll be cold.

1 comment:

  1. It's a good thing I worked out how to stop following blogs, because between you and I, I was following four. Sure, I like read your blog, but there are limits. :) Now it is all sorted, links and all. Good luck with your lake swim!

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