Don't you love Mondays? I love starting each new week with a clean slate. I guess hubby does too, as he attempts to quit smoking pretty much every Monday without fail! As for me, I'm now into my third smoke free year! According to my calculations, I have now NOT smoked my way through a grand total of $8,932 worth of cigarettes! I guess I should be really proud of myself, except heaven only knows what else I have ended up spending those thousands of dollars on, because it sure didn't end up in my bank account.
But never mind! A new week, and a new me - a super savvy, smart shopping one. I've done the hard yakka quitting smoking, I've done the diet and exercise thing, I just have one vice to purge from my system - my uncontrollable spending. No more retail therapy or caf lunches for this chick! I just can't wait to see how much money I DON'T spend from now on.
8.30pm...
Well, the day started out perfectly. Dropped the kids off at school, went for a run - very virtuous. Took car in for a service - tried to put it off but it was due over 4,000km ago. Have made pact with mother not to meet at the local caf every lunchtime so had can of soup for lunch instead and felt very saintly. All was going so smoothly until I hopped in my courtesy car to pick the boys up later and noticed Dudley the dog limping badly. Packed kids and dog up and went to pick up my own car. Which needs new tyres. Four of them. $95 each - and yes, I did shop around for the best price. Hubby did not believe me that I needed to replace all of them, until I showed him the canvas coming through on the one he'd said was perfectly fine. Took dog to vet, Dudley has a broken toe. No big deal, except on further examination we found he also has something horrendous going on in his ear - oh, the shame of it! I felt like a neglectful mother. Aforementioned ear needed to be dealt with straight away, which meant a trip to the next town to a bigger vet. Kids grumpy and hungry after school, buckled under the strain of their back seat grumblings and stopped at the corner shop for a bag of chips and a drink. Still recovering from shock of tyres and anticipated cost of vet so also picked up a bottle of wine for later (on special of course). Poor Dudley was subjected to another examination before it was decided that he would be kept for an overnight stay and undergo surgery on his ear in the morning. By this time running very late, had promised the kids McDonald's for tea but they were too naughty in the vet's so managed to get out of that one and save myself $25 in the process.
Total spends for day:
New tyres - $380
Corner shop - $21.00
Vet - Still to come - gulp
