Trudging Along

Someone left the comment that dieting and budgeting work on the same principles. This is one of those things, that when you hear it (or in this case, see it) you think "Brilliant!" and then you think, "Gosh, that's so obvious, how did I overlook that?" I don't know why I never drew parallels before. It makes perfect sense. I do the same things for both, and if I screw up or abuse one or the other, it catches up with me. If I spend 2 dollars here, 5 dollars there and so on, I go broke. Same if I eat a little here, a little there, I gain back weight. And you have to love food and money, they tell the truth, even when you don't. My poor daughter, 20 years old and learning to live on her own, keeps calling me and telling me how the bank screws up her account all the time and she's overdrawing. "Do you check your balance every day? Do you sit down with the statements? Do you write down what you spend?" No, she doesn't, but she says she remembers she didn't spend that much. And I roll my eyes and shake my head, because I know she's not looking closely enough. She's also gaining weight and swears she eats, maybe, 1200 calories a day. Same thing with the money, do you write it down? Do you have a food budget? Of course not. And I hate that I want to take her side because she is my kid and I love her but it drives me crazy that she is dishonest like this. I can only keep repeating myself and hope some day she gets sick of being chubby and broke and realizes it's a day to day counting thing. It's boring, responsible, tedious, but it's what gets the job done. My oldest is 23 and she's pretty good about her finances, I rarely have to scold her and my 17 year old is the best of the lot. That kid keeps track of everything. Some people seem to be more inclined to stop and write things down, figure them out. Depends if you are the patient sort, but even if you aren't inclined by nature to be deliberate and careful, you have to learn how to be. Very few people I know are good at keeping accurate mental track of everything they eat and spend.

And about the question of how many calories did I figure to eat while I was losing weight? Well, I didn't know much about dieting or anything when I started out. I mean, I knew you were suppose to eat three meals a day, and a healthy afternoon snack, I knew the basics, that 3600 calories equals a pound and all that. What I did at first was I didn't try to change what I ate, I just wrote everything down. Everything, every little bite, lick, taste, all that. I couldn't believe how much I was eating in a day just picking all day like that. It was like 3500 calories. Frankly I was surprised I didn't weigh more than I did. But whatever my weight was at that time, say I was 220 pounds, I just added a zero to the end and ate that many calories, so I would have eaten 2200 calories at that weight. Whenever I lost ten pounds, I ate 100 calories less a day. It took me almost 3 years to lose all my weight doing this and I bottomed out at 1500 calories a day (whenever I go lower than that I'm so hungry I could eat a tree) and I've weighed a steady 118 for a year now, so I guess this is what I'm supposed to weigh. I have a food journal still and a money journal and I treat both budgets pretty much the same, although I think I should work harder on being better with the money, which is what I'm doing here, by making myself accountable to this blog.

Today I'm not spending any money. I have 3400 in savings, 170 in checking, and 45 dollars in cash. That's perfect for now.

Someone asked me how did I lose all my weight? I went from an all time high of 265 to where I am now at 118 (one year so far, hurray) just by writing down what I eat and exercising every day. It's very boring, really. Until I got down to 150, I simply multiplied my weight by 10 and ate that many calories. The only thing I can think of that this would have to do with money is I didn't spend any money on any diet stuff, surgery, counseling, fancy food, none of that. And it really brought the food bill down too, since the whole family eats better now and we're all a bit thinner.

Today's money stats, good. I bought Bridget some ice cream for 3.19 and I bought one of those safety kits (5.99)that has the door locks since my youngest is 2 and has learned how to open doors and I won't sleep well at night if I think of her escaping. Argh! She's my fifth kid, how did I survive the terrible two's with all the others? I don't remember at all. She's so demanding in the stores that I find I'm not spending as much as I used to because with her being so loud, I run in, grab what I came for and run out. No time to browse means no time to find things to buy that I didn't really need in the first place.

So thanks, Fi, for that.

good day, today. Got food, have money left over from yesterday, got everything I need.

I made it to the bank today to find I had WAY more money than I thought, so I transferred 500 into my savings instead of the 300 I was merely hoping for. Yay! I dance a little happy dance. Then I withdrew the amount of cash I needed to complete my errands. Gosh, that's such a good idea, I can't believe I've gone so long without doing it. This way I have only one big withdrawal to account for instead of the 7 to 12 little piddly transactions that always total more than just taking the darned cash out all in one shot. It's weird how you think one big thing is bigger than a bunch of smaller things when it isn't.

That sounded kind of dumb, but you know what I mean, don't you? That self deception when you say, "Oh, I only spent 10 to 30 dollars here and there, it can't add up to that much." But it does and you say, "Where the hell did all my money go?" But you'll hem and haw about a 200 dollar withdrawal for food and incidentals, saying, "That's too much, I surely don't need that much." And when you get home, all you've got left is a couple of beaten up twenties and some grimy assorted change. But I'm feeling better, because I'm more aware and that feels good, even if I don't like everything I have to be honest with myself about.

I tend to be careless about small amounts and try to lie to myself about how they add up. And when I do it, I know I'm lying, I know I'm being lazy and I know it's not a huge thing, but it troubles me. I don't like deception, and I can't say that it's okay because it's my one fault, I have no debt to speak of, I should be allowed to spend a little extra here and there. You aren't "allowed" faults, justification is weak. So today I can reach into my pocket and tell you what I had and where it went and that's that. Not that I am going to list the details here, but I have it in hand.

It's been a good day. I am pleased.

This is simply a quick note before I go to bed. I haven't spent any money today - good for me - but tomorrow I have to buy some groceries. I find I spend less if I shop more often, because I buy too much if I think I need to get a whole week's worth, but I'll write down the totals here every time I go out, so I can keep track here. I buy notebooks to write things down and then I lose them, so what good is that? And I can't bore everyone I write to with the details of my financial life, it feels rather self centered of me. I love these blogs here, so I'm inspired.

To start, let's begin with what I want and what I have. I want 5500 dollars saved by June. I currently have 2900 dollars saved. I hope to add 300 more tomorrow, for some reason, I can't get on my credit union account online but I have to go out that way anyway tomorrow, so I'll stop by and see them then.

Everyone here has been sick and so I won't need that much food. Ice cream for sore throats and ginger ale for upset stomachs. There is still tofu, cottage cheese, soy milk and fruits and veggies that Fi and I can live off of for several days until the other two kids are up and about.

So that's my plan. 300 dollars to go to the Plastic Surgery fund and no more than 15 dollars on food and cold medicine.