Re-committing

Posted on February 8, 2005 4 Comments

Every few months, I take a moment and recommitt myself to the budgeting cause. Budgeting and saving, as it turns out, is not that easy. The urge to overspend can be realized at the swipe of a credit card. Particularly problematic for me is the expense account. For a week, I’m able to live the life I can’t afford – hotels with feather pillows, airlines with extra legroom, dinner with appetizer AND deserts. Then, as quickly as it came, I crash back to reality – searching for vacation deals on Orbitz and Southwest.com, tasteless takeout dinners (or worse, home-cooked) and no HBO.

I remind myself that charging $1,000 per line item on my credit card is absurd. That simply handing off that piece of plastic to an intern and saying, “I don’t care how much it costs, just get it done” is not how I live my life. I could, but then I’d have a Save Karyn Web site instead of my pleasantly pink budgeting motif.

As I crash land this week from the fast-paced la-la land that expense accounts create, I’m thankful I can gripe about my balance here. Speaking of that budget, here are a few updates that I like to call, “The State of My Wallet”:

- I have recently been in touch with an editor at MoneyPants.com who is interested in publishing some of my entries on that Web site and also offered me a gift subscription to the site’s budgeting software! She says it’s much easier than an excel spreadsheet, and I’m excited to try it. Now that I have time to do this, I plan to register and let you know how it goes.

- This week is my big scary wisdom tooth surgery appointment. Come Friday, 9:00 a.m. Central Time, I will be counting backwards to let the anesthesia take over. Did you know that no one really knows how anesthesia works? This is my first surgery or major procedure EVER! And the cost of my troubles? Two-hundred fifty dollars on-site followed by my insurance company payment, which I am sure will rip me off. This should have been my Las Vegas money – I’ll explain later.

- I bought a cardigan at Target for $12.00 that didn’t fit, so I have to take it back. But then I returned a shirt to Ann Taylor Loft that didn’t fit (I always buy everything too big) and had to shell out $12.00 because they didn’t have anything left for $24.99 in my size. Sigh.

- I bought a copy of Budget Living magazine. It’s actually pretty cool (though I think the editor is a bit strange judging by the photos). Check out the Feb. issue if you have a car for some nice saving tips, like not paying for health insurance twice and raising your insurance deductible to save some cash. I also liked the page with Jules Asner shopping at Walgreens.

Sadly, because I’ll spend so much money on my teeth during Feb. and March (about $650), I can’t go to Vegas for Brian’s NCAA Tournament trip. It’s usually so fun! Brian places bets all morning while I lay by the pool. Then we walk from sportsbook to sportsbook in the casinos, gambling and checking scores. It’s a great budget vacation – we don’t gamble that much and usually end up breaking even. Not this year for me… sniff, sob.

Wish me luck on the wisdom teeth procedure!

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