I Need a Budget! | How Much Did I Spend Last Week? Dec 5-11, 2022
Life is just a lot more expensive than I thought it was
It turns out that I’ve had it all wrong. I was under the impression that my weekly spending totals were high because I was throwing money around like Richie Rich, imagining that I was never going to see a dry day when, in fact, my weekly spending totals were high because everything is expensive!
Even when, like this week, I buy almost nothing that isn’t entirely necessary (don’t @ me about how Christmas gifts are not necessary, try telling that to our children), I end up with a total that’s a whole lot closer to $1,000 than it is to $500 (or even $200, I can’t imagine it).
Which makes me think… why bother budgeting? What’s the point of any of it? I’ll never save any money anyway!
(I did download the You Need a Budget app – hateful name – and filled in a few details and now am studiously ignoring any and all YNAB-related emails and thoughts as they come into my inbox and head, respectively.)
Monday
This week sees another period of adjustment for us, as we figure out the new routine now that Brandin’s at home – he sends in a few job applications this week and sets up an interview for next week.
I’d always firmly believed that everyone who works needs a wife at home to handle the household – a “wife”, in my mind, being the stay-at-home parent-slash-handler-of-household-shit, regardless of gender – but I’m beginning to realise now that having a “husband” at home is not exactly the same thing.
Having a husband at home feels, at times, a bit like having a teenager at home, in that there’s someone on the couch trying their best not to speak to you while you work and do laundry and make yourself cups of coffee.
(By Wednesday, we’ll be having this very discussion and he’ll be promising to make me the occasional cup of tea and step up when it comes to household chores, but the fact that we even need to have the conversation is irritating, to say the least.)
My Hulu subscription, which has been downgraded to the very basics – but keeping it ad-free, because honestly some things are worth spending a few dollars on – comes out. ($10.25)
Work on my book is progressing at what seems like a fairly robust pace now, and this week I’m liaising with my editor on finalising our book cover and working on copy for the cover. At one stage, I send her suggested copy to my friend, asking, “Do I sound like a knob?!”
She says no, but honestly, even having to ask is worrying!
I had thought that putting a memoir into the world would be a catharsis, of sorts, but it’s really difficult to lay yourself bare in that way, over and over again, and even going back and forth on edits and suggestions can feel terrifyingly personal. I’m looking forward to having this behind me (while also aware that I have a lot more laying myself bare to look forward to in the publication and publicity cycle!).
I’m working on a freelance commission and my regular Substack work this week, as well as updating the podcast YouTube and scheduling the week’s episodes, and trying to figure out a schedule for recording over the next few weeks that allows both us and Liam, our producer, to get a nice chunk of time off!
We decide, ultimately, that we’re going to take a week off the podcast – including the Patreon, which we never do – over Christmas, hoping that people will understand!
(I’m also going to take the week-and-a-bit of Christmas and New Year’s, from Saturday Dec 24th, to Monday, January 2nd, off writing for Substack. I hope you can understand my needing a little R’n’R over the festive period and, as always, thank you for support.)
When Brandin picks the boys up we have dinner of homemade pizza and watch Encanto for the 122nd time (I just guessed that, I wonder if there’s a way of finding out exactly how many times you’ve watched the one thing on Disney?!) before bed.
Daily total: $10.25
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