Monday Check-In: Waiting for Sandy
Good morning!
The city has evacuated 375,000 residents who live in the low-lying areas in all five boroughs most likely to be affected by the storm. We received a company-wide email asking us to stay home, which is fine by me, because it is so gusty outside right now, I’m pretty sure I’d be blown away into the sea if I stepped outside. Plus, the MTA says that subways and buses are all shutdown until Wednesday. So I’m at home at the moment, blogging under the covers with a flashlight next to me in case the power goes out later.
I spent $93 at the grocery store this weekend (more than usual) so I could hole up in my apartment with good things to eat while I wait out the storm: cheese, baguettes, fruit, granola, an assortment of vegetables, and yes, a few canned items. I made a pot of butternut squash soup (quick recipe: cook down chopped leeks in butter, add chicken or vegetable stock, add chopped butternut squash and allow to cook for 20 minutes, add heavy cream until you start feeling guilty, and blend with an immersion blender). I’m ready to face this storm, which hopefully won’t do very much damage.
And how were your weekends?
Photo: NASA
Mike, I hope you and Logan stay safe! The Sandy photos I’m seeing out of the US are insane!
(Also, as a side point, we call that soup pumpkin soup in Australia, which seems oddly fitting seeing how many pumpkins keep popping up on my twitter feed!)
@JitterBug The question now is did I use enough exclamation marks in my comment? I think maybe two too many…
I’ve been dreading this check in for several reasons: namely because I went off the rails in spending this weekend and because the Billfold judges.
Friday was pricy – $91 for dinner and drinks – but it should have been cheaper because I ordered tastes, not glasses – but I suck at judging how much wine I’ve been given, so I couldn’t argue it AND I like the place so much I don’t want to be that girl – but it meant my wine costs were approximately double what they should have been. Then my friend’s order (we had split food but she had wanted the fries and I didn’t) ended up on my bill – so that was $6 and I was like “whatever, I’ll cover it”… then since I was already screwed I had another beer elsewhere ($7) and pool ($1.50) and bus tickets ($5.20).
Saturday – breakfast at Denny’s was like $19 (my friend wanted pancakes and MAN THAT PLACE IS EXPENSIVE) with tip and coffee; dinner since our Zombies at the Diefenbunker thing ran super late because of a fire alarm in the cold war bunker was like $30….
Sunday – at a friend’s house, picked up some Montreal style bagels and cream cheese for about $8 but came home with a free squash and macarons… then out for dinner which was $12.
SHOOT I forgot the bar Saturday night where I met up with my cousin and brought a friend. $9 cover but I was driving so I only had a “bar” tab of $15 (since I ordered one drink and pop and then spent the rest of the night drinking waters, I seriously over tipped)
So yes. PAINFUL weekend and I am not adding it up together.
@megsy No judgement!
@megsy girl, don’t be afraid to speak up when they fuck up your bill! No one will be mad at you! The server might be a little miffed, but it’s their job to get it right the first time!
@Megano! I think they were pouring me glasses (5oz) versus the tastes (3oz) which is why I didn’t say anything! Otherwise I would have called them on it. And the girl I was out with, who had ordered the fries, is a new friend from school so I didn’t want to look cheap.
@megsy ack. the stress! but good job for actually posting it. you have inspired me to do the same.
@megsy I feel your blowing budget out of the water pain. On Saturday night I spent $80 on cabs
1. $30 to get to the predrink because I missed the bus, then detoured to take the highway but it was closed for construction (you’d think a cab driver would know these things)
2. $20 to get downtown, should have been $10 to be equally split among 6 people but the people I cabbed with were friends of friends who didn’t pay me back. Joy.
3. $30 to get back home. Subway was also closed this weekend.
Bummer.
@megsy (It helps to have no shame, I find)
Oh man if the subway was closed this weekend I feel less bad about not doing any Halloween stuff or making it to the Rookie party.
I spent $85 on boobie hammocks, and $20 on printer ink. And $10 on Chinese food. I…should probably get a flashlight at some point today though.
@Megano! Boobie hammocks. I <3 it so hard. (And I need to buy one or two more myself, since I have exactly one that fits right.)
Friday: I was up in NY for work but got done early Friday so I got a slice of pizza ($3) and some cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery ($7) and I went to MoMA ($25). Got dinner with some family who live in Long Island and they picked up the tab ($0) but I did buy some snacks for the late-night train back to DC ($4). When I got in to DC I got money from an ATM for a cab ($3 fee), refilled my SmartTrip ($20) so I could avoid the massive cab line at Union Station and took a cab home from Dupont ($15).
Saturday: Went on a free but so-so CIA disguise tour but bought some soda and waters ($6). Slice of pizza and a soda at We the Pizza ($7) plus a marshmallow milkshake from Good Stuff Eatery ($4). Six-pack to bring to a friend’s Halloween party ($13).
Sunday: Grocery shopping, which was totally packed thanks to the storm ($22). Also picked up an umbrella and hairbrush from CVS after I forgot mine in NY ($16).
Total: $145. And now I’m huddled up at my boyfriend’s place to ride out the storm.
I spent more than I’d planned but considering all I did it wasn’t too bad overall. Friday afternoon I went golfing with a few coworkers and my father. My boss had a gift certificate that expired at the end of the month and he gave it to me to use. I did buy a cooler of beers for everyone ($25) but everything else was covered. After the golf game I stopped at a nearby brewery with my father to hit up the tasting room, and of course he insisted on buying. Then on my way home I stopped at two liquor stores to buy beer for Saturday’s pre-game tailgate and Halloween party. This is where I went a bit overboard – $110 total on two and a half cases. I then stopped to get gas for my car ($33) and picked up a couple slices for dinner ($6).
Saturday I actually didn’t spend much at all. I brought the beer to the tailgate but everyone else brought the food, so I had sausage and eggs for breakfast and Italian beef sandwiches for lunch. We then caught a ride to the stadium for the football game, a disappointing punt-fest of offensive futility, then made our way over to a Halloween party at my friends’ house. I did stop in at another liquor store to pick up a special release sour brown ale for my sister and splurged on another expensive release ($36). But beyond that I didn’t spend anything else on Saturday.
Yesterday I spent nothing. I went down to my parents to help out with a few chores and had dinner.
I was visiting friends in Boston, and the subway shut down before I got back to NYC. Fun adventures! So:
Friday: Bus snacks were leftovers from lunch, which was $12 for a sandwich-soup combo at a place I love. The sandwich was for the bus ride. Worth it. $10 on my Charlie Card, and $23 for dinner at a Tibetan restaurant with one friend. $45 on Friday.
Saturday: Anthropologie online sale, purchased while waiting for my friend whose couch I was sleeping on to wake up, $120 for three items and shipping. Brunch, $20. Coffee in the afternoon, $4. Corset to wear to The Rocky Horror Show that night, $40. Commuter rail out to friend in the suburbs, $6. Dinner from a Thai place, $14. Commuter rail out to Rocky Horror Show that my friend was in, $3.50. Ticket to the show, $5. Ride home with my friend in the cast: priceless because we were silly silly people. Saturday total: a whopping $212.50
Sunday: Taxi from my couch-friend to another friend’s neighborhood because the T sucks for getting from JP to Brighton, $20. Breakfast with said friend, $12. Snack purchase so that I could use wifi at Starbucks to check in with work’s hurricane emergencies, $3. Lunch and drinks with the actor-friend, $21. Snacks at TJs for the bus home, $8. Car service home from the Bolt Bus because I got in at 7:30pm last night, $36. Dinner with the roommate, $25. Sunday total was $125.
Grand weekend total: $382.50. Yowza.
Stay safe and dry!
Looking up my weekend spending just made me realize my $25monthly donation to the Obama campaign (something I set up months ago) went through yesterday. The only problem with this? Two weeks ago I went in and asked them to delete my payment information, and the site said it had done so. WTF? I mean, fine, I’ll donate the money and not make a stink but that’s badly misleading. I think they just deleted it from the “quick donate” buttons but not from my recurring payment. I gave earlier in the month and planned for that to be instead of this donation, not in addition to.
I spent only $25 at the grocery store this week, instead of the $60 I budgeted, and didn’t buy the $30 supplies for a compost bin, but did go out to eat multiple times instead of just once. Pleasantly, I had budgeted $20 for my one time eating out, and my three times added up to $6.50 + $6.50 + $13 = $26, only $6 over. So I spent $51 this weekend instead of $110, though the $30 I’ll probably still have to do.
I also spent 30% of my weekend enjoying beautiful weather and 70% inside, dumping lots of papers and emotional memorabilia in order to consolidate a four-drawer filing cabinet and two big bins of paper into three expanding file folders. I call that a win, but it also made me cry a lot (coming across letters from dead friends and family – I kept those and a few other really emotionally important ones – and also lots and LOTS of random letters from penpals whose full names and stories I have forgotten already). Plus, it two of the bins were basically the hard evidence that my family just loves me to bits, which made me cry with happiness. This was a cheap weekend monetarily, but I am freakin’ exhausted.
@ThatJenn I have pretty much every letter I’ve ever received. I can’t throw them out. I can see how that would be really tough.
This was kind of a rough weekend for me because my sort-of-boyfriend (we met 5 days after he got out of a two-year thing and kept seeing each other but both of us get squicked out about relationships so we keep agreeing to not talk about it and this is why we need a word for our thing [but not the words "boyfriend/girlfriend" or "relationship"]) is gone for the next two weeks and I may have spent too much money trying not to think about how much I miss him.
I spent about $35 total, and that’s all split up at Tedeschi’s, CVS, and the deli (where I got a delicious chicken salad wrap I somehow only ate 3/4 of; I blame all the sad-candy I’ve been eating).
I did nooooot do a good job of saving money this weekend:
Friday- $12.74 for Deadlight on Steam
Saturday-$55.89 for Tend Skin (per @LilyRowan ‘s recommendation) and $40 cash. I spent almost all the cash over the course of the weekend, on apples and peach-rhubarb jam at the farmer’s market, a delivered stromboli, and some other stuff. $31.68 at Hill’s Kitchen for a tea kettle and some tea strainers. $37.05 at Backstage for a cowboy hat to complete my Halloween outfit. Later that night, while in cowboy garb, went to Iron Horse with some friends and apparently spent $67 bucks, which seems like a lot, but the end of the night is pretty fuzzy so I don’t really doubt it.
Sunday- $127.27 at Shoppers- The dangerous thing about shopping in case of emergency is that everything seems justified. “These Peanut Butter M&Ms could be the calories that save our lives!” Bought enough water, Powerade, chips, bread, canned fruit, and champagne and beer to keep my girlfriend and I holed up and caloried-up for the next couple months or so.
Total: $331.63, yiiiikes.
Guesses. Friday: 634 pesos at a concert (worth it), 90 pesos on beer, then 38 pesos on more beer, then Saturday: 10 pesos on the metrobus, 9 pesos for water for metrobus ride, 55 pesos breakfast, 5 pesos dinner (tip only), then Sunday: 300 pesos books, 10 pesos unidentified street food, 55 pesos lunch, 150 pesos at the market, 15 peso taco. Total: approx 1427 pesos, or 110 dollars.
@theotherginger Please do a My Last 1000 pesos!
@selenana Mike Dang, can I? This weekend was the best 1000 pesos I have spent since I arrived. But I can also spend 1000 pesos between now and tomorrow, if needed, for journalism.
Umm, I… impulse-bought a flight to Dublin for New Year’s. $700. So, this weekend was not the cheapest? (BUT IRELAND.) Also this weekend: gas $65 (lots of driving + needed full tank for Frankenstorm), groceries $30, round of drinks at Halloween bar party $30. Now to hunker down and hide out some place where I can’t spend money between now and December 30.
@sockhopbop Please tell me where you purchased an international flight for $700. NOW.
@Lauren Ooh so I used Kayak and its comparison function — the cheapest ended up being Expedia. I’m flying Lufthansa out of NYC (out of Newark, into JFK).
@sockhopbop Thanks!!!
I did so well this weekend! It’s so much easier when my boyfriend is out of town.
$1 – parking Friday night
$11 – bottle of not-so-tasty wine for me and a friend
$7 – half-drunken walk home fast food: hamburger, french fries & milkshake
$25 – admission to Anne LaMott’s speaking event in two weeks!!!! Includes a copy of her new book!!!! I’m freakin out here.
$4 – crappy latte. Not going back to this cafe.
$2 – Jessica Valenti’s newest book on Kindle.
THAT IS SIXTY DOLLARS Y’ALL I AM THE BEST.
Fortunately I live on the best coast so I have no need for hurricane prep. I feel for you guys though.
@Lauren I also volunteered again this week for Washington United for Marriage, calling to ask voters to approve the freedom to marry for all couples. This = free satisfaction with life, free interesting conversations with Bible-thumpers, free dinner. Highly recommended.
@Lauren Anne Lamott!!!! <3
Let’s see if I can remember everything, as a good portion of my receipts seem to have evaporated.
- $8.18 on Fri night for dinner with friends (veggie sandwich, fries, and a soda at Five Guys)
- $2.00 for coffee Sat morning
- $5.00 for a loaf of gluten-free bread on Sat
- $6.73 on Sunday evening for a vegetarian burrito bowl at Chipotle (ended up eating out with friends after our Pathfinder game)
That’s all I can think of, so the total comes to: $21.91, below my low estimate from the Friday thread. It was a pretty cheap weekend, focused on trying to eat through what food I have in the house and not spending money on random things. Which made the sweets craving I got halfway through the weekend a little hard to deal with, but oh well. Now I just need to keep it cheap until Wednesday (to stay on track and not dip into next month’s budget).
I went wayyyy over budget, but Mike Dang said there is no judgment so I’ll suck it up and post instead of pretending I forgot.
Friday I met co-workers for drinks and I was late and they were rushing me so I took a cab ($15) then spent ($16) on drinks + apps. Went to a different bar for a different co-worker’s birthday and had a drink ($5) then met other friends and yet another bar and bought a round ($13.00) and took another cab home. Sigh. ($10).
Saturday my roommate drove me all around the city and we did some errands and had some brunch. Materials for “Binders Full of Women” costume at Target ($12). We also bought candy that reminded us of our childhood while we waited for our brunch reservation ($5) and brunch included a delicious sangria drink ($23). I paid for her parking ($3.25) and for our cab to the Halloween party that night ($23).
Sunday was my favorite. I met a friend for brunch and unlimited mimosas at a fantastic place that didn’t kick us out and let us stay and drink even though we were done eating. We tipped 40% because we were so happy with the service ($44). Tipsy off mimosas we decided to make gluten-free red velvet cupcakes. Friend bought most ingredients, but my portion was ($10). Spent ($4.99) on Cris Cab’s new album on itunes to help with the baking. There was a miscommunication about her ride from the city so she ended up staying the night and I bought pizza ($20).
Total: $204.24
I promise to be better next weekend, Billfold!
I was pretty good, and only went $6 over budget. That was 12% of my weekend projection, so I am only 12% disappointed in myself (as opposed to 300% disappointed last weekend.)
Friday: I spent NOTHING! Felt great.
Saturday: $12 for some groceries, $8 for a bottle of wine and a banana, $17 for Thai take-out after I decided I was not in the mood to go to a Halloween party (this was definitely not in the budget and I have no excuse except for the fact that I happened to walk by a Thai restaurant.)
Sunday: $10 on dinner with a friend and $9 for a Maker’s on the rocks after dinner.
Total: $56!
So I kind of went over budget this weekend because of hurricane preparations. I decided to do get a months worth of food (unrelated to the hurricane, I just find I save money if I do it all at once) but then added on a ton of extra canned and dry goods. In total I spent $170 on like, 75 items at Trader Joes and the grocery store near my house. Then I went to target and spend maybe $70 on misc household items (printer ink, trash bags, etc.) and $5 on a metrocard because I left mine at home.
$25 on various airport sundries; my dad and I didn’t spend that much money this weekend so I didn’t feel obligated to pick up the check at any point (thanks, dad!).
Budgeted $60.
Didn’t do a budget this weekend, but -
Friday: 100 yen on modeling clay for my costume. 1370 yen pizza. 1200 yen movie, 500 on snacks.
Saturday: Went to sell stuff at the flea market to raise money for the nanimals. Bought two dresses for 100 apiece. Sat nite, Halloween party at a friend’s house. I had already given her cake deco supplies I bought for her and beer I bought in the US.
Sunday: flea market again, but got rained out. Lunch at an Italian place, 1000 yen.
Weekend total: 4370 yen/$55
Friday: $5 latte because I was pouting about having to go in to work on my day off
$32 take-out sushi for me and boyfriend, to go along with–
$2 Walking Dead episode (we don’t have cable, so we’re watching them on Amazon a week
behind)
Saturday: $0 coffee and tacos with boyfriend (his turn)
$0 stayed in for lunch
$6 coffee and a snack before–
$0 previously purchased ticket to see the Mountain Goats!
$0 no dinner or beer at show because stomachache
Sunday: $0 breakfast and lunch at home
$35 Thai food delivery for two
$0 baked cookies and banana bread with existing ingredients– free entertainment and
noms for the week
Total= $80– an incredibly cheap weekend for me.
I think I spent what I expected but over three days, not two.
Friday I treated the boyfriend to dinner ($42 in total) and he treated me to the movies. I also spent $34 at Target on Halloween costume stuff and about $20 on groceries for cookies I had to make for my Nonna’s bday.
Saturday was a total of $40 at the pumpkin beer festival. Which was surprisingly worth waiting in line for two hours for. I really had such a good time at that. And then $10 on my share of the cab ride home.
Sunday was $15 at the grocery store on pumpkin carving stuff, including two big pumpkins, and $10 on chinese takeout.
Then bonus weekend day from the storm was $20 on groceries to make my boyfriend and I a nice meal.
So, like $175 or so. Which is more than I’d like to spend in a weekend but that’s what happens sometimes.
Chiming in late but this is important business so:
Friday: $109 on groceries in preparation for the hurricane. Felt WAY over my budget at the time, but this also included all alcohol plus $20 in cash for the rest of the week, so in reality only about $5 over budget.
Saturday: Went to the Walk to End Alzheimer’s in DC on Saturday morning – spent about $6 on the metro. Saturday afternoon, $31 on costume attire (I was a pirate). Saturday night, $4 in metro fare to get to Halloween party (I also brought a six-pack and some chips, but had bought those on Friday). Saturday total: $41.
Sunday-Monday: Hunkered down for the storm. Spent $3.50 on laundry.
Total: $153.50. Just about right.
@LO it IS important business, adding my voice to the late-chimers:
i estimated $160:
friday – pre-saturday dinner party liquor store run $29.99
- dinner because i didn’t want to cook pre-saturday dinner party $12.30
saturday – dinner party groceries $63.59
- another quick liquor store run $8.99
- post-dinner party bar tab $27.00
sunday – jugs of water for hurricane (during which i did not even lose power or internet, nevermind water function) $5.18
TOTAL: $147.05, which means i came in under, but likely will make some of that up over the week since i haven’t bought real groceries for my life yet.
@wearitcounts Glad to know I’m not the only one who needs to have an actual space to hold myself accountable! As much as I want to be an Excel spreadsheet person (so in awe of you people!), I would never keep track of this stuff otherwise.
I remember you talking about the party last week. How did it go?! Did the extra attendees your friend threw onto the dinner-pile provide at least interesting conversation?
@LO well-remembered, and thank you for asking! three of the potential guests ended up not making it, but not before i’d made enough beef stew to feed an army. but the party went well and the awkward person in question was relatively well-behaved. and leftovers, for days!
i’m not an excel spreadsheet person either–i scribble my monday check-in on a notepad on my desk as i go over my online banking statement. it’s probably not good that i allow my bank to have more authority over remembering my spending than i have, but it’s just kinda how i do.