Frugal in times of unrest in the country

Imagine not being sure if you will be able to buy gas or groceries tomorrow. Imagine if power is out and you are not sure when it will be back. Imagine if you don't know if there will be curfews that will restrict your travel to places you prefer to buy. You would be buying foods, probably fast foods, at any price. Filling up your gas tanks at the closest gas stations, buying groceries at any open store. Travelling long distances or waiting in long lines to buy things to supply your family with shelter, clothes and foods. Price comparison and buying frugally take a back seat to fullfilling the sense of protection and people turn to cover necessities at any cost.

 

Last week concluding today has been one that has had me with those fears in my mind. On thursday we were sent home early as things in our city were feared to turn chaotic and they didn't. Today sunday we had our president removed from post and the city panicked for a while. However order remained and so far there are no curfews.

 

How has this affected my debt plan? I am happy to say that for the most part it hasn't affected as much as I feared. We got paid on friday and we had filled our car's tanks as regularly scheduled.

 

We did have to go to another supermarket, not the lowest price that we usually go to, but not overtly expensive. We had to do that because the low priced one had no power today as all the city awoke with no power. We purchased about the same amounts of groceries we usually do. We didn't go to the wholesale supermarket today but we plan to do so later this week when we hope things get more back to normal. Thankfully the supermarket was not running out of most things and even though we had to stand in line at the register for about two hours we were able to purchase what we needed not at the lowest price but at least at an average one.

 

As power came back I was also relieved that I would be able to work this sunday for my morning job.

 

However, as the new president and the ousted president will probably clash this comming week, I fear that some of our freedoms and rights might suffer temporarily and will make me spend more money that I would usually spend.

 

So, if you think you have trouble being frugal, imagine living in a country that makes it even harder by changing the rules of the game from one day to the other.

 

Right now, I feel calm and in peace, but I ask you to pray for this to continue for my country, my friends, family and me.

 

Well, back to work now.

Its monday

I have a throat infection that was really bad last week, was a little bit better last week and it's the same this week.

 

I have a morning job in which the urgent tasks don't let me get to the important tasks. Urgent tasks like keeping internet available to the programmers when the main connection goes down...switching to the other provider is not easy. Important tasks like figuring out if we can reboot a box without locking everybody in or out of the office in phoenix. Important stuff like wondering how to remove Internet Explorer 8 and put Internet Explorer 7 back into a very busy server without disrupting service. I wonder if my boss is as patient with me as he seems to be. I sometimes feel I would've at least had a talk with myself. He's a really nice guy and I hate not completing the tasks he assings to me the same day.

 

I have an afternoon job on which we have several projects going on at the same time, fiber lines being installed at locations. Calling people to get access. People calling me for a meeting to look at their product. A team meeting to decide which company will get $250k worth of contracts for software and hardware. A new version of a system that at face value is the same as the previous one but requires a meeting with users to explain the subtle differences, oh and that one has a deadline to go live by July 1st, otherwise we will feel it when we try to get the monthly reports consolidated from the old and the new system. Topping this off is a boss that is a time-hog, he keeps me in his office to fix an email problem, but while I want to know what is wrong he is taking landline and cellphone calls, so I wait. Then he tells me war stories about the things he's done and the places he's visited. And we always go back to his farm. Then he asks me what I do with all the time at the office.

 

I have a side project with a cellphone repair company. It's an old piece of software that requires a couple of fixes here and there. They've used it for almost 7 years now and it's a monster to support. Early last year they fired their IT support guy, so guess who gets calls now when they can't connect to the application. Or when they can't find a backup that has 30,000 level 3 work orders. And they had the never to ask me to come in the morning cause at 6pm they already wanted to leave as I was searching for the files I would need to figure out if there was a chance to fix the problem later tonight.

 

Well at least I have work, it beats not having anything to do!

 

During the weekend my car leaked oil like crazy. The fix was so cheap but the oil was so expensive in comparison! Wife had a flat tire. Repair shop says I have to change all tires on that car soon..like in a month or so. It's a heavy car for the tires I think. Mine still has good ones and we bought them almost at the same time.

 

I have friends I haven't been able to call since two weeks ago when I said I would call them "tomorrow" and then tomorrow said "no, you are going to be neck deep in work...and sick too".

 

Well at least my morning job payment came and I was able to pay off my credomatic platinum card, finally paid off my extrafinancing on it. I was paying $315 for that. Now I only have $550 balance on that (on the dollar side) and about 90,000lps on the lempira side. The minimum payment on the dollar side will now drop from $350 to $95. That will allow me to pay off more debt in other places while slowly paying this one off.

 

I have tons of emails comming in and luckily most of it is spam. The other I read quickly and file or delete. I have avation news I haven't read since january and catching up will probably imply deleting every other email while I read some during my sleep or something.

 

Well at least it's monday, how bad could tuesday be huh? (I know I'm asking for it, I want to know how bad it can get).

 

Enjoy your monday

June 15th and 16th

June 15th

 

Medicines:

 

298.03 for Wife's

378.24 for Wife's and mine

30.75 for me (sore throat lozenges)

 

200lps for seamstress fees for my oldest daughter's uniform for graduation.

38lps for chicken burger for daughter and I as we went to pick up the new uniform

 

 

Still pending is my BP medication. which I think will be purchased tonight or tomorrow.

 

 

June 16th

 

50lps for youngest daughter to buy pizza at school during graduation ceremony.

14lps for sodas for lunch

7lps for gift bag for wife's class.

 

My wallet is empty right now, not a single lempira on it. I have mixed feelings about this. A relief of sorts (very easy to say NO!) but also a sense that I can't buy what is really needed. Every day I see something new.

 

Sent my invoice today for my morning job payment. Hope it comes thru on or sooner than friday.

More June 14th spending

50lps for oldest daughter

40lps for youngest

200lps for board game for the kids.

96lps for fabric softener

 

I started entering some numbers on the spreadsheet hoping to be able to use it on my cellphone. It is much harder than I thought it would be to use it on my cellphone. I need 40 hours on a day!

 

Today I stood my ground when we went to the mall with some of wife's friends. They went into a couple of stores with her and my daughters. Only thing I bought was the fabric softener. Little trinkets they bought on their own allowances. Even the fabric softener I decided to buy two one liter bottles for 96lps rather than the 3 little bottle for 147. One to pay less and two to try different scents instead of having to stick to one scent.

 

Ending the day without having completed the numbers in the spreadsheet. Tomorrow I have a normal working day so I should find some time then to start entering the first numbers from the blog posts.

 

 

 

 

June 13th and part 14th

Last night,

 

Bought kitchen containers: 102lps

Bought 10 pieces of chicken for the weekend: 219lps

Fueled my car: 430lps

went out with the whole family for a ride around the city, bought sodas for everyone: 56lps

 

Satuday:

 

bought lotto tickets: 30lps

Went out with the girls and bought some granitas: 110lps

Parking fee: 20lps

Paid 2699lps for wife's master's degree classes this month

Paid 300lps for wife's dress for tuesday 6th grade graduation ceremony

 

200lps at karaoke bar and dance club. We rarely go out but wife's classmates insisted. They footed most of the bill as they had the most drinking and eating there. Got to know two places. One is allright the other one not so much.

 

 

Sunday morning:

 

Breakfast: 45lps

Lunch: 207 with economy combos for the five of us. Dinner should be the leftover chicken from saturday.

 

 

Girls was a board game to pass the time, also the youngest one wants a shirt for the graduation ceremony. That is yet to be purchased.

 

Have I told you I dislike weekends? they really make my pocket ache.

 

 

June 12th

Last night:

 

99lps on a pizza, 70lps on burgers.

 

Today:

 

20 lps on semitas...here we go again buying daily. hmm

 

400lps for wife to buy "stuff". Includes food at the university, garden cleanup kids, and salon stuff.

 

600lps on radiator leak repair for my car. They tell me it's the last repair they can do to it, next time I will have to buy a used radiator for 2500lps. At least the price hasn't changed since two years ago when I asked for the price of it.

 

681lps to fill up my wife's car. It's payday for me and I try to fill up my cars on that day. Later tonight I will fill up mine.

 

My car has given me a lot of trouble lately. I think all of the problems had just accumulated over time and are manifesting themselves now. Boss says that I should get another car but right now it's not in my plans, not even close! I always feel a little depressed when my car is in the shop mostly because it's never totally fixed. There's always stuff they discover that I should fix soon. So I leave the shop with a fixed car but in my mind it still is not "completely" fixed. Right now I know my car needs a brake inspection, engine work and a tuneup. I was going to do the brake repair now but I might have to wait another week on it since this radiator stuff came out of nowhere.

 

Weekend is rolling around again and I hope not to spend much this weekend, I am definitely not buying pizza hut.

 

I'm starting on the spreadsheet and will go over the numbers I've recorded here. Steve suggested to write down the interests on credit cards. My main goal right now was just to figure out where my cash is going so writing down the interest on my credit cards as part of my expenses would be done at a later stage.

 

I hope to have the first 15 days in the spreadsheet for tuesday and post the totals here.

 

Placed 200lps extra on my emergency fund on top of the 1000lps that gets deposited there automatically every quincena. I did to start repaying some old withdrawals I had done from the the fund. I still owe the find 1500lps but I don't want to put too much of my own money there because it might make me dip into the fund unnecesarily.

 

186lps for two months service on my company cellphone (I had forgotten to pay it last month, its usually only $4 each month because I use it for intra-company calls only)

259.51lps for Electricity Bill.

494.13lps for Water Bill

87.38lps for landline 1

56.00lps  for landline 2

 

8000lps transfered to wife for: household supplies, groceries for the 15 days, maid payment, and her personal expenses. This is an item that I should have more control over but it's a difficult subject. Wife says she spends about 3500lps on groceries and pays the maid somewhere between 1000 and 1500lps each quincena. That would leave her with 3000lps for her personal expenses for 15 days. That includes fuel and food she buys for herself. However the 15 days are not over and she comes to me for money stating that she spent some money on X or Y thing for the house, me or the girls. When I ask her for detail report of her expenses she bucks and gets upset at me.

 

For example right now as I'm transfering the money she's going with my oldest daughter to buy her school shoes for her graduation. She will pay for the shoes from the money I just transferred to her but will want me to reimburse the purchase to her account. I will want her to pay it from her money because I already spent 500lps on the rest of the uniform. We will probably end up paying for it half and half.

 

Today she ask me for money three times, When I left home in the morning, after lunch and when she was dropping me off at the radiator shop. It really upsets me that she just asks me for 100lps each time and said that she spent it on this or that (when I get upset I don't listen to her that well). Just to end her nagging I gave her the money.

 

I was specially frustated today because I was spending money on car repairs again and I knew I still have to pay for her classes, people left and right were calling me for assistance..etc. It kinda overwhelmed me with a sense that I'm out there trying to hold the fort, trying to complete all my duties on both jobs and she's just interested in not being bored and knowing when i'm going to give her money.

 

She just called to know about the money and the money for the shoes. It went just as I described above and she was reminding me that she was going to pay for my daughter's hairdo for the graduation ceremony. I told her I was going to pay for half the shoes and half the hairdo. I think that if she wants more money from me she might give me higher price for the hairdo.

 

It sucks not being able to trust your spouse with money and having to fight them all the time about it. It's exhausting at times. That plus she gets upset when I work weekends and nights. It's like she doesn't relate the money she gets to the work hours I do. She has the 9 to 5 mentality that if i'm working so much how come she doesn't get more money. We get into arguments about debt every month or so and it's the same story over and over. I know it by heart by now.

 

Now the youngest daughter wants some clothes for the ceremony too. At least on this my wife sided with me and stated that she would just buy her a cheap shirt at the "Palacio de los Niños" store if I pay for it. I said I would if it's low priced and only the shirt. I know that store always has low prices.She said that the young one had enough clothes to go to the ceremony. Usually pay days lift my spirits but this time they haven't.

 

I feel like having a couple of beers today, something I rarely desire. The only uplifting thing is that i'm putting in a lot of hours on the morning job (working evenings and weekend) and next week I will probably get paid by friday.

 

I'm closing this now as I'm not in the mood to keep writing. Although I will keep track of the spending to post it tomorrow.

 

 

 

June 11th

I now have  a rough design of my expenses spreadsheet. I will put the numbers in it over the weekend.

 

Last night I bought pringles for 47lps and some home supplies for 50lps

 

Today I spent 500lps on new uniform and accessories for my oldest daughter. They graduate from 6th grade using their daily uniform and the ones she has are kinda old and worn.

 

Spent 10 lps on the atm fees for that and spent 20lps on semitas for breakfast.

 

youngest daughter wants something like pizza or stuff to snack on for tonite.. there is a promotion on some fast food restaurants today but I will check it out cautiosly as i've known them to have tricky promos befores.

 

Hopefully monday I will have some totals for the first 15 days of June.

 

 

June 10th

Gave 20lps to my daughter for food while at school doing her graduation ceremony practice.

 

Paid 24lps to buy semitas for breakfast.

 

So far no calls for stuff from home.

 

 

June 9th

Slow day.. woho!

 

Paid 50lps to recharge my digicel phone. I use that to join US conference calls with my morning job. The nature of the job allows me to do it from almost anywhere I can get online with my 3g cellphone and my notebook. Whenever im not at the local office of this job during the daily conference call I use my digicel phone to join the call from my car my other job, home, etc. A 30 minute call usually costs about 15lps, that's because for every 2 paid minutes, Digicel gives you 10 minutes free (US calls).

 

During lunch I gave 10 lps to my daughters to buy "churros" or candies.

 

They say they are out of soda because one of the 3 liter bottle had a hole and lost all the fizzle and even had ants in it. I'll write tomorrow what I but tonite.

 

A goal would be to have one day of no spending!

 

 

June 8th

I'm going to send this on tuesday because I know after work I have to stop by the supermarket to get some shampoo and some trashbags.

 

The day started with spending money to fix my car. The accelerator pedal was stuck in. That was quickly fixed but then they discovered something with the distributor.

 

70lps for the distributor cap, the shop had a rotor and they did some work on the carburetor to seat it down again, and supposedly "fix" stuff that I didn't know about.

Also the windshield wiper on my side had stopped working and with the rain it was difficult to drive this way. Some plastic thingies took me almost all morning to find and even though I neede only two I bought four in case they fail again. 60 lps for that.

 

shop charged me 350 for all the tiny things they did. The car is not running smoothly but I think I have to take it to a carburetor shop for a tune up. This mechanic warned me that I was going to require some engine work on the car soon because the radiator water had some oil in it. They said to budget about 1500lps for that. ARRGH.

 

So far nothing more this monday but I haven't gone to the supermarket yet. Opps almost forgot about the 10lps from the ATM fee and the 50lps I gave my girls for their last day o school today.

 

A coworker picked up the stuff by the supermarket and brought it to me at the office. He said he would look for the recipt tomorrow.

 

 

June 7th

Sunday was another run to do some bill payments:

 

I thought I had paid my Credomatic loan but apparently I didn't hit OK and a call from their collection dept got me up from bed. Paid 2500lps that were still pending to pay (had paid 3000 before june).

 

I paid the last 600lps towards the graduation party of my oldest daughter.

 

Paid 3000lps to my citibank Arranged payment plan (pending 2900lps for this month)

 

I put money aside to pay for the August payment of my girl's school. They have two payment options, one has a large first payment and lower monthly payments spread over 11 months. The other one has 10 equal payments that a a little higher than the montly but much lower than the first payment. Since the school gives me discount on all the payments except the first one I'm picking the one with the lower first payment since both options add up to the same yearly total to start and for me it means more of that total will be covered by the discount.

 

Spent 70lps on Marquesote bread for breakfast

 

Wife asked me about the 14th month bonus and complained that I didn't give her any part of it. Instead of the larger sum she wanted I gave her 1000lps and went to the HyperPaiz to buy some things for the house. 747.75 lps was the total there for some dishes, clothes, soda, and towels.

 

Also fueled her car, 389lps to fill it up.

 

The girls wanted some food while we were shopping, 138lps on that.

 

And then on the way back my car broke down. Brother helped me by towing it back home.

 

They could make up their mind on what they wanted for dinner and I had to invite my brother and my nephew. Spent 500lps on dinner. That's a lot , damn Pizza Hut is expensive but was the consensus for this time. I'm not buying Pizza Hut again in a long time.

 

I spend a lot of money on weekends. I've known it for a long time. I hope to get that spreadsheet going now that I have the numbers. It's been hard trying not to forget anything since small purchases and those without receipt are easy to forget. Also the girls ask for one to five lempiras and that get's lost in the shuffle.

 

 

 

 

June 6th

Spent 100lps on engine compartment was today, as usual I had trouble starting the engine afterwards. This time it wasn't the washer's fault. I flooded the engine and had to use some carb cleaner to remove the gas and start it. Last time I washed the engine I had to replace the distributor cap as it got cracked (That was over 5 years ago). Yeah I don't like to wash my car's engine. Now we'll see what else leaks from my car.

 

Spent 300lps on washing machine supplies: a bottle of liquid detergent and a tub of powder detergent. That should last for a looooong time since we plan to use mostly for jeans, towels and bed sheets and similar large pieces of fabric. Our daily clothes will still be washed by hand while we have a maid.

 

Gave 200lps for gas to wife.She's going out to see some friends and I had used her car all mornings that I had my own car in the shop. I might fuel my car today too.

 

Going out to pay some bills now.

 

Paid 7000 to my HSBC credit card.

 

Atm fee of 10lps.

 

70lps for fruit shakes for both my daughters. Gave them also their allowance of 30 and 40 lps.

 

Paid 16lps of parking fees.

 

179lps of a Keri body lotion offer (two regular bottles and a travel size one). We all use it in the house and were running out of it.

 

Fueled the car with 495lps. Stupid pump allowed my tank to overfill and I spilled about a cup full of gas into the gas station grounds. It was raining heavily so it went away with the water runoff.

 

Recharged my food card with 300lps at Pollo Campero and got a family pack of 8 pieces of chicken, 4 fries, 4 breads, and a 1.5 lt soda. The recharge gave me 2 extra pieces of chicken. Unfortunately I didn't notice that I forgot the soda at the restaurant until I was home. It was raining heavily and the streets were flooded and so I didn't went back to get it. Spent 30lps to buy a 3 liter soda.

 

The 15ft extension cord I couldn't return it because they had already opened the pack at home.

 

On weekends I usually spend more money. As I was running errands with the girls today I said "no" about a thousand times to all things they wanted. just gave them the fruit shakes.

 

Today our soccer team is having a match against the US soccer team. Right now it's the second half and we are tied 1 - 1. Let's see how it ends.

 

We lost. Tough luck.

 

 

June 5th

Last night I spent:

 

23 lps on soda

60 lps on candles

38 lps on snacks

 

Today I spent :

 

610 lps on car repairs to my car. Changed the bendix, fixed the leaky fuel hose, got the battery housing secured and replaced a leaky oil warning bulb and added a quart of oil. Tomorrow I want to to an engine compartment wash to get it all cleaned up so any other leaks and loose attachments. The radiator will soon require some work but it's been holding for a long time now with regular checks and topping off the water. Will check the battery tomorrow too (free!).

 

Paid 5850 of tuition for my girl's last month in school. I managed to save the bus charge of 1920lps by driving them myself even if I have to get up at 6:30 to drive them. It makes the day last longer and I enjoy sunday mornings sleeping in :-) . Got the prices for next year and they don't make me happy. They do have two payment options and there might be an advantage for me on one option versus the other one. I will write about that when I confirm i'm eligible for the second option.

 

I noticed that I haven't included any ATM withdraw fees. Since monday i've spent 20lps in ATM fees (10lps each). I have two debit cards, Ficohsa and Credomatic. Ficohsa charges 10lps each time. Credomatic is free on their own ATMs for the first five transactions of the month. I was going to use it today to get the money for my girls but I hadn't transferred from my dollar to my lempira account so I had to go into the bank to withdraw dollars and sell them there.

 

Spent 325 on two heavy duty extension cords for the washing machine. The orange ones. I bought a 25ft cord first and as I was walking to the counter I was wondering if 25ft was going to be enough. So I started thinking about getting a 40 or 50 foot cord. Then I saw a 15 foot cord there and thought that if the 25 was enough I could use the 15ft cord to better organize my rollaway computer desk. So the plan was that if I needed both for the washing machine then it would be ok. If I could get away with using just one then I could use the other one for something else around the house. I didn't want to go home and not be able to get the washing machine working today because of a few feet of electric cord.

Besides when I added the price of both cords it was the same price as a single 40 ft cord.

 

In the end the 25 foot was just about right with about only one foot to spare and placed in a way that it wouldn't disturb traffic or cleaning in my girls room. As I started writing this I began to wonder if I really should use the other cord or should I try to return it to the hardware store. The 15ft cord was 145lps. Don't know if they would give me the money back or if they would want me to buy products from them. I will try to return it tomorrow. I have the receipt here and the cord is still in it's original packaging unopened.

 

I'm now trying to write this during the day to keep better records. During the weekend I will go back to my posts and try to put a spreadsheet together that I can update on my phone, it has mobile excel and so I can do that :-) woho!

 

I do like the description of my spending because it makes me take a second look at what I've spent money on. I see i'm having a "bad luck" week with the cars and the washing machine installation. However i've noticed that I've bought snacks almosts every day when I really didn't think about it that much before.

 

Paid 8020 on my Promerica payment plan. That was payment #11 of 36 all of same amount, although I am about 15 day behind schedule and so I get a few calls to set up a payment date. I have been improving as I was 30 days behind schedule before.

 

Well, the "golpe de estado" (military taking over government) rumors have me going home early and not stopping for much so that's the good side of that. The bad is that I probably won't be able to fuel up my car as wanted to do today after the repairs. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

 

PS...it's just rumors, right now everything is pretty normal here, but tensely so.

 

 

June 4th ....got paid!

got my 14avo from day job and got paid on my morning job. Got to resist the urge to burn that money.

 

Today I spent 200 on fuel for wife's car. 350 on fuel for mine (ran out of fuel today! luckily it was near a gas station).

 

Gave the girls 20 lps to buy snacks at school.

 

Spent 75 on coffee and donut tonight for me and the night shift operator. He regularly lets me eat from his pringles and drink his soda. So i decided to return the favor.

 

Paid about 2600lps to my loan with credomatic. Tomorrow is credit card pay day. I get a great feeling of acomplishment when I pay my credit cards and my loans, like i'm making progress.

 

My car smells like gas and I think it has a leak in a hose somewhere..so I called the mechanic and told him to bring the Bendix on the morning since I can't drive it with a leak (fumes make me dizzy if I'm idling too long in one spot). I'll have to spend at least 500lps on repairs again. I think my cars know my pay schedule!

 

Do your appliances /cars /house know your pay schedule?

 

 

June 3rd , more car repairs

Spent 350lps repairing the starter engine on my car so I don't have to push it to start it anymore. However the mechanic says I have to change the Bendix on it , so i'm looking at a 300lps part to change in a week or less otherwise I will get stuck again.

 

Spent 100lps on food for the house (actually it was coke, semitas aaaand some other foods that I can't remember).

 

Last night I also spent 20 lps on peanuts , 20 lps on candles, wife lits candles to saints to get help getting a job I guess.

 

My daughter just called and asked me for peanuts again , the ones I bought yesterday were not the ones she likes although she ate them anyway. She told me where to find them and I hope I do and be done with that so tomorrow she won't ask for more stuff (yeah right..more like I will say no tomorrow).

 

I'm really tired of waking up at 6:30am, wife has been having headaches from something and only gets better at night but if she goes to bed too late she also gets them. I'm just tired. The good thing is that the girls are almost done with school, probably next week or so. Oh and i'm picking them up too so i'm saving about 2000 lps this month just by doing that, specially since half of the month they will already be home all day anyway.

 

I worked a lot on both jobs today so I hope I can just watch tv tonight and go to bed...arghh.. I forgot I gotta do some programming..it's easy and I might not get to it but i've been begged to finish it soon. So i'll give it a shot and see how much I can do in 30 minutes or so.

 

The more I write about my expenses the more I recall money spent. For example money for breakfast or late at night was escaping my mind the first day. I'm already designing a spreadsheet on my mind to put the expenses in some way that gives senses to it. MMM maybe I can open a spreadsheet on my phone and write on it. We'll see.

 

Have a good night

June 2nd... bleeding money

Today I spent 580 lps on metal pipe to support roof over washing machine. The house's laundry area was too small for the washing machine so we had to hire someone to put in the pipes and ducts and faucets for the machine..but the area was in the back of the house so it needed a roof to protect the machine from the rain. The electrical will have to be done later..for now I will run a heavy duty extension cord from an indoor outlet to the washing machine.

 

Also today I bought 40lps worth of lottery tickets. 20 lps were wife's request and 20lps were my own impulse buying when I opened my wallet and found the exact change. it's 10lps each ticket and when I buy I usually buy two.

 

I strolled around pricesmart today. It was safer on my wallet than walking down the mall (I walk for the exercise). At pricesmart everything is so big or so expensive that I can't "impulse buy" anything there. Not even the food is cheap enough to tempt me. I did look at some surveillance cameras and other electronics but mostly for curiousity since they have interesting stuff there almost all the time.

 

Yesterday I bought 24 lps worth of cookies for my daughters, the youngest one called me as I was leaving the office and asked, and begged for cookies. I don't make it a habit to buy for them but she has very good negotiating skills. Now that i'm writing down my expense we'll see just how much I give in to her requests.

 

I would've spent more today but the mechanic wasn't at the shop today and I need him to fix my starter engine on my car. Comming up with the money for that is a whole other story. Probably will have to use the emergency fund since it's sorta dangerous for me to get stuck at night (or day now) somewhere not being able to start my car if I can't push-start it.

 

We get our 14avo friday, but for good or bad almost all of it is committed already to my girls' school.

 

 

June, expense tracking month

Well, i've decided that I will keep track of my expenses thru the whole month of june and write them down here about the time I'm finishing work every night. I hope I can remember to write down everything since every day that I think is going to be quiet turns out to be hectic and then the quiet days are mostly "catching up" days so there's never time for a break. Darn I forgot I have to do some programming tonight.. ugh!

 

Anyway. Today I spent:

 

L 14 on meds for wife (she feeling nausea from her migrane)

L 361 on construction materials for the place were the washing machine is going to go (Not including the 600 I spend saturday but that's last month!)

L 250 on car repair (exhust broke on the Lancer as I was driving over a speed bump. a shop close to home soldered it back together)

 

On the "cutting expenses" front, I went to drop my girls at school today once again, PLUS I went to pick them up at noon since I had to go home anyway. It made no sense to pay for the whole month of june for both when they have only this week left in school.

 

Anyway, that's my first report. I'll keep them short so I can keep at it all month. good thing I found a good pad to carry in my car.