So can I just say I hate money... money is the bane of all existence. With its introduction all everyone does in life is pursue this superficial idea of currency. It's what drives us to work 1/3 of our day everyday in a cubicle tucked away in a far corner of an office (now don't get me wrong I love money). My problem with it is that suddenly the majority of your life becomes the pursuit of money. The worrying of money. The balancing of your budget. Paying taxes.
So I looked at my bank account today for July and outta nowhere I had spent about $300.... on food, gas, events, etc. How in the world do I spend so much... I live at home, I don't have to pay for my own car insurance, I have free healthcare thanks to responsible parents, and pretty much I live a good life. But now that I have started working I've TRIED to become stingy with my money. It literally flows out of my pockets and I can barely remember where it all goes.
Now don't get me wrong my summer job provides me well. And it allows me to have a more luxurious lifestyle. But I think as I head off to college and start paying for college, working, and having no more fluid income I'm gonna have to start learning how to save. So as for the breakdown of my $300 budget/month. About $120 goes to gas. (DOES ANYONE REMEMBER WHEN GAS WAA $1/GALLON!?) that would've have saved me $80 a month. But not so I live in the beautiful 21st century with our oil reserves slowly draining away and the price of oil skyrocketing. Well there goes cheap petroleum, I think I should buy an electric scooter.
At least in college I'll be relegated to taking public transportation and forced to bike/walk everywhere so things should work out pretty well. That leaves me with about $250/month budget (factoring in the fact that I still have to pay for public transportation which is probably about $2 a day aka $60 a month). Anyway I started to realize my biggest expenditure... is withdrawing cold hard cash the stuff that you just throw down on anything anytime you need it.... I've withdrawn $140 this month. Thats almost $40 a week on things I can't remember what I spent it on because its all disappearing. So my goal for next month (August) and preferably the rest of the college school year I have an every Sunday rule where I can only withdraw $20 per week to spend on whatever that week, and when that runs out... well I'm shit outta luck... that would cut my budget down to about $180 a month. Which leaves me with some questionable expenditures I tend to do like charging fast food to my debit card and lots of it... and random expenses like paying for parking, buying small items, and groceries.
So realistically I'm expecting to set my goal at $200 once again and limit my driving, my withdrawals of cash, and going out to eat life's just too expensive these days. Maybe when I get a full time job then I can start living the good life. You could call this my venting session....
I was going to blog today about some really cool websites that I've come to love recently but I'll have to save that for another day I am way too moody and touchy about money to talk about it at this point....
but here's some you should check out
wolframalpha.com (coolest intelligent search engine ever)
smittenkitchen.com (perfect date night/couples cooking food)
gizmodo.com (everything and anything you need to know about electronics)
mint.com (perfect money management free website)
instapaper.com (a way to bookmark articles you want to read in the future)
lookbook.nu (cool fashion from around the world)
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