Not Quite Betty Crocker

Remember this post, about being in control of money and having a budget and paying shit off?  November and December threw that all to hell, and I can’t wait to be back in the peace of not spending money.   Crazy, but true.

The holiday season is tough for me, my stressed spendthrift self warring with the indulgent generous one.  I LOVE to give people gifts, HATE to spend money, LOVE to wrap things, HATE to pay for them…. I just know I’m going to regret spending that dollar later, but then I throw it all aside to fork over the ten bucks for the latest cool razor my husband will use until he has to buy new cartridges (we never get around to that, so then he’ll buy a different razor when he can’t stand the itchy beard). 

Ten bucks, people.  I called a freaking razor a stocking stuffer.  (Lucky for me he won’t mind.  But wrapping the shaving cream might have been a little over the line.)

To top it off, my husband’s birthday is in early January, so I have to come up with a gift idea less than two weeks after Christmas.  The idea isn’t the difficult part; limiting myself to an acceptable cost is.  Actually, deciding what an acceptable cost would be is the toughest.  This year I’ve wanted to buy him a Wii (and extra controllers and games and such), take him snowboarding, spring for a trip to DC… and I think we could surely afford any of those if I stopped accidentally dropping a hundred bucks on a quick trip to Walmart for cat litter.

So here I am, on Christmas Eve, putting a plan together so I can get back to breathing normally.  Here’s hoping it helps!

To avoid the accidental purchases of somewhat-necessary but mostly-optional goods that make my quick trips ridiculously expensive: Alice.com.  Yep, I’m going to give it a shot.  When I lived in NYC, I had groceries delivered once a week, significantly cutting down on my grocery budget.  Let’s hope this service works similar magic on toiletries, because coupons just didn’t cut it.  (I bought a bunch of name brand crap I wouldn’t normally buy.  Everything either sits in a closet for some day in the future when I might need a shot of energy drink – not – or made me fall for high-priced brands I’m loath to buy again.)  Also, a trip to Walmart should not count as shopping; let’s stop pretending.

To prevent the feeling that a hundred bucks will change my life: automatic savings withdrawals.  Does that make sense?  We make way too much money for me to feel as strongly as I do about a hundred dollars, never mind a thousand.  People call into Dave Ramsey’s radio show and he says, “$1500 would change your life, wouldn’t it?” And it would.  But it shouldn’t change my life, not with the number of dollars coming into and out of this household.  So I have a savings goal of $10,000 for 2010 – straight savings, not vacation money or fun money or vet bills money.  My theory is that if I have money just sitting there, hanging out, patting me on the shoulder and telling me it’ll all be all right, my stress about the ten dollar razors will lessen.

To deal with kitchen-avoidance and restaurant-regret and fake-food-weight-gain: a limit on the number of meals we eat out.  I like to cook.  I like to eat the food I make.  We have a chest freezer full of frozen stuff, magazines chock full of yummy looking recipes, and this.  And yet, my default reaction to being hungry is to go somewhere, for two reasons: 1) the kitchen is trashed and I have to clean it before I’ll cook in it (is that a woman thing, because my husband will prop a cutting board atop a stack of dirty dishes?), or 2) the experience of eating out with my husband gives us time to talk and catch up (usually, unless the restaurant has a TV, in which case my hopes of getting through a conversation is nil).  But when we eat most meals at home, I feel better.  The kitchen gets used (and cleaned), we spend less money, and we’re more satisfied with our meals (and waistlines).  And I need to stop eating my way through my income.  So we’ll go back to eating out for one lunch and one dinner a week.  The bonus: we can spend more on a single meal that way.  Yay, sushi!

To manage the fear of future vet bills: fewer animals, pet insurance, and a pet care fund.  We have eight animals right now.  Yikes!  Five of them are permanent family members; three are “bonus.”  It’s time to kick Operation Finding Bonus Dog a Home into high gear, decide whether the two black cats would be better off in another home, and suck it up and pay for pet insurance.  Every animal will get their own Health Month in which they’ll be vetted, shot, and manicured.  We can handle one every other month.  On the off months we’ll stock up on pet food, dog chews, and critter preventative – so each month will have the same amount budgeted, see?  {Side note: anyone want a sweet dog or a pair of nice but feisty black male cats?}

And… to feel like we’re just a bit more in control of everything: a family budget.  First, I need to be more stringent with my own budgeting, but then… then I need to convince my husband that we should have a plan for his money, too.  Wish me luck.  We’re at a better place in our relationship than we were right after we got married (and I tried and failed), so maybe we’ll succeed this time.  Let’s call this a bonus goal, though, just in case.