Grocery shopping

Thursday after work I went grocery shopping. While I was sitting at my desk at work, I wrote out a perfunctory list. I realized at the end of my struggle in the frozen food aisle that I had pretty much stuck to my list. I did buy a few extra items, but I also didn't get two things. I NEVER stick to my list. This is a milestone!

Here's what I bought:

*items that were on my list

*Yogurt
*Cheese sticks
*Dubliner cheese
*Cottage cheese
*Cheese (yes, after all that, I needed to write down just "cheese" because I didn't have enough. Yes, I bought 4 distinct kinds of cheese. No, I was not having a wine and cheese party. Shush)
*Zucchini
*Spinach
*Broccoli
*Tomato sauce
Mushrooms
Frozen smoothie stuff
*Grapes
*Melon
*Triscuits
*Beans
Bananas
Sweet Potato
Bagged lettuce (I've been craving salad and figured, why not?)
Carrots
Croutons
Skinny Cow single serve Cookies and Cream ice cream
Thin Crust Margherita Pizza (It was on sale!)
Still, my purchases came to more than I thought they would. I even bought lot of things on sale or in their natural state, and tried to stick to my list.
Total spent - $64.95
11 out of 23 items on sale
Total saved - $9.26
Most expensive item - 24 pack of low fat string cheese
Least expensive item - bananas, $.69/lb., got 2 for $.50
 
I'm just so irked at the cost of decent food. Ugh. Sure, I could have only bought sale items and store brand, and trekked around the city from store to store cashing in on the bargains. I don't have a car. The grocery store I go to is in the city and has a high mark up. I am however able to walk home from the store and eliminate the need for a taxi or long bus ride and total exhaustion, thought I do tend to collapse once I get home from the sheer irritation factor of having to go to the store at all.

I'm also kind of shocked at how healthy this list is and the fact that there's no chocolate (unless you count the tiny single serving of Skinny Cow and let's face it, it's probably not 'real' anything. My eating has really changed for the better!

Time to put my finances on ice...

As I write this my credit card is in a container of water in the freezer, turning into a frozen block of debt. Yes, just like in the the movies. ENOUGH! I need to get a grip and sop using my credit cards. Period. It doesn't matter if I get airline miles, cash back, whatever. It is debt. Not only did I rip my credit card out of my wallet and fling it in the freezer, but I moved my savings over to my checking and used it to make payments on my two credit cards.

What set off this flurry of activity? When I arrived home tonight there was a letter from my USAir MasterCard that started "Important Notice of Changes to Your Credit Card Account Ending in XXXX". As of November 1, 2009, my APR (Annual Percentage Rate) is switching to a variable rate. According to this letter the current variable APR is 5% higher than my current APR. In two months my account will be at the mercy of the evil credit lords. Eeeep!

How can this be happening? How do I even have credit card debt? A few years ago I was in a lot of debt, declared bankruptcy, and started fresh. I was really careful. I planned, saved, and didn't use credit cards. I applied for a credit card to build my credit score back up, and use it responsibly. Well, the economy is in the toilet and so is my job. I've had major pay cuts this year and because of that, am now in debt again. It's not much compared to how much I was in debt before, and compared to the average amount Americans carry in credit card debt I wouldn't even be considered in debt. But it makes me nervous. Debt is a slippery slope and I don't want to be in fear of creditors or worried that I can't pay my rent by the end of the year.

I'm posting this here so that I will be serious about paying down the debt and keeping on track with my spending. Yes, it's worth it to not eat lunch out when I'm down so that I keep that $7 off of my credit card balance. When I want to hang out with my friends or splurge a little on a magazine or book, I need to really think about what I'm getting out of that versus the potential debt it will give me. Isn't it worth some saving to be able to pay the bills that matter and not have an anxiety attack over it? I think so. I know this is going to be hard, but I have to do this now and not when I'm too far in to fix it.

Silence and Snow

I can't believe that I've been so quiet on this blog. My mind is always working away, thinking of posts, worrying, planning, dreaming, worrying...Okay, so it makes sense then that I haven't posted, because once again I'm stuck in my internal world.

Work and worrying about finances has taken up most of my mental space. Finances at work, at home, and world-wide are unstable. I can't read the paper or blogs about finance anymore because I get scared. I know a lot of people who are struggling in this economy. Heck, they were struggling before things got "bad". This is the first time I've worried about my company going under. It's not really comforting to know that we're okay for now, but who knows what the fall looks like? Should I be running around throwing my revamped resume' at anyone who will take it? Maybe I should start with updating my resume'.

I keep putting these posts in here as drafts. I have 4 different posts waiting to be finished and let out of the queue, but somehow I don't get back to blogger to release them.

Okay, here's what I came on here to say, and then I'll spend some time tomorrow night pulling the other posts into the daylight.

I am writing on here because I'm going to do my first bar increases in knitting. That's when you knit in the front and in the back of the same stitch to add a stitch. I've done yarn over, make one, wrap and turn, but not bar increase. I'm working on the left sleeve for a baby sweater and I'm nervous. Why would this make me nervous when I'm planning a major lace project? Who knows. Everything makes me nervous lately.

I haven't posted any pictures of the sweater yet - here or on ravelry. I have the back panel and left side finished. Last night I ripped out the right side because I was going to have to start a new ball in the middle. The sweater pieces are small enough that I don't have to do that. I just wasn't thinking when I started knitting the right side last week.

And my cowl? 1.5 rows left. Winter is almost over. I should be working on this and nothing else. But in order to do that last row I have to start another ball of yarn. ARGH! I keep going back and forth between leaving that last row off and finishing, and knowing that if I don't do the pattern right it's going to bother me forever because the edges won't match.

Shopping crazy

This time of year always sends me into a shopping rage, wanting to buy new clothes to endure the hot summer, fun cheap shoes because hey, it's summer, and my financies surely know that I need to spend some extra cash. Last weke I bought 3 pairs of shoes at Payless. Yesterday I tried on cropped pants, capris, and was desperately searching for a fun but okay for work skirt. Do I need more clothes? I probably have enough cropped pants and things from last year left over that I don't need any more. But I don't think I even own a skirt, so I'd like to purchase and actually wear one this summer.

Why stop at clothes and shoes? I ordered a messenger bag from ebags.com that should arrive next week, and I have a whole list of books and music that I want to get. Most of those can wait though. Books never go out of style. :)

I did buy a book yesterday for a book club I joined through Meetup.com that discusses classic books. The book for this Sunday is Narcissus and Goldmund by Herman Hesse. I've never read his work but he has this reputation of being a deep thinker. I am only on chapter 4 so I doubt I'll finish the book by Sunday, but I have to try. This will be my first book club meeting ever, and I'm not sure how things work. Are there set topics? Do people talk in turn about the book? I'm hoping that it's not like some of the grad courses I took as an undergrad, where I felt like I was the only person in the room who wasn't up to speed. Ah, the pressure! I need to relax about it, go expecting only to meet new people, maybe get a good cup of coffee. And who knows, maybe I'll like the book! I haven't joined up with a group in the past becuase I had absolutely no interetest in what they were reading. This time, I figured I had to take the plunge.

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Hubba-Bubba Nightmare

It's a beautful Saturday outside. The heatwave has gone, the sun is out, lots of fun and free things to do outside, and where am I? Sitting in my apartment at my messy desk, sorting through receipts as far back as January 2007. Thing is, I feel like organizing my receipts - going through the drawer full of them, sniffing them out in the various piles in my apartment, used as bookmarks in books I haven't finished reading, still in plastic bags with purchases, all those online purchases I've made and not written down, TODAY is the DAY!

I used to be very good about keeping track of my expenses, how much I'd spent on eating out, extra things, household expenses, ect, thanks to sitting down and entering things into Quicken on my computer. Well, this year I haven't really done this at all. I vowed to clean it all up and enter things and get a clearer picture of my finances before I moved in March, but that didn't happen, what with um, moving and all. Now here I am, almost 3 months in to living in my new fab place, and receipts are just a small part of the paper disaster that is my apartment. It's rare that one gets the movitavation to tackle an enormous project like this, and today I have that strength. Some might say, why not just throw it all out? It's not like keeping hold of your ATM receipts is going to do you any good. True, true. I no longer keep ATM receipts, or ones from places such as Starbucks, places where I would refuse a receipt if I could, but they force them on you.

SO, now that I've procrastinated a bit and written on my blog *yay* I will dive into my desk and hope I come out the other side without any papercuts.

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