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.