Spending, Life, Income and Food Updates… 1/9/2012

I promise I made more food besides just the picture above this past week. I just haven't taken too many pictures. I hope everyone had a great weekend! Another week back to the grind. We had a wonderful weekend, temperature wise. 65 to 70 degrees most days. I hope it stays like this forever.

One thing I'm really hating right now is that classes start back up next Monday. This Christmas break went by way too fast! The only thing that I keep telling myself is that at least this will be one of my last semesters.  After this all I need is 2 more classes. Anyways, here are my updates for the past week:

Extra Monthly Income: Not too much extra income so far this month. I make salary at my job (so it's impossible there except for end of the year bonuses), and the BF's work schedule is back to normal. I sold another textbook but have been a little lazy in shipping it, plan on doing that today. I also plan on putting stuff up on Ebay today,  or at least taking pictures of things.

Volunteer work: I posted the other day about how I didn't go to the first volunteer training session. So this won't be starting until the summer time. I've already kind of failed at my volunteer 2012 goal. I am on the list for another local animal shelter and they send me emails whenever they need help, so I plan on doing this so that I can get somewhere near my monthly goal.

Budget Cutting: We cut our budget by a little every month, but it's the little things that add up of course  🙂

• This isn't really a thing in the budget that I've cut (because I can't control it) but the temperature is still pretty wonderful here. It's been 65 to 70 degrees these past couple of days. It's supposed to get cold soon, but I'm really hoping it doesn't. I love our super cheap heating bills. They're only around $50 to $60 a month right now, when just last year it was around $200 to $250 a month. Just more money for our vacations now!
• We've definitely cut back on our entertainment budget this month, because we'd rather save money for our vacations and not worry about money then.

Food: I cooked some last week, but we also ate out a lot. Didn't spend too much as we ate at a lot of cheap local restaurants. I need to cook more. I plan to post my first menu plan soon to help me with ideas for food and grocery shopping. I'm also going grocery shopping today to pick up some fruits, vegetables, bread and milk.

Shopping: I actually haven't done too much shopping lately. I've been extremely lazy and haven't felt like venturing into the mall. I do want to buy a bunch of beach clothes soon. I know my first vacation isn't for 2.5 months, but I want new clothes! I feel that this is one thing that I can splurge on where I will be happy. Since I plan on selling some stuff in my closet, I don't consider this too bad.  Also, there are so things that I've seen on other blogs that I want to try and buy or find something similar to:

• Over at Turtles and Pearls, she posted a pair of look alike shoes that are much cheaper than the original from Kate Spade. I'm thinking I'm going to try and find these this week. I always like a good deal. They would be perfect for work and would look really cute with dresses!
• Francesca just found this awesome chair on the street for free, I'm extremely jealous. I showed it to the BF and we both agree that we both need to go to the antique store and find something like that.

$100 Ticket: I tried paying this, but when I went online through the for-profit-money-making ticket company, they said they no longer take online payments for the city that I got the ticket in. It said on the ticket that I could pay it online, so I waited until the last second. So I had to call the city's police department and they said I could only pay it in person from 9am to 4pm on Monday through Thursday. UHHH WHAT?!

• When am I supposed to pay this? I work from around 8am to 5 pm Monday through Friday.  I would have to use a vacation day because the police department is too far away for me to go during my lunch break at work. And let me tell you this, I will definitely not use a vacation day so that I can pay an extremely stupid camera ticket.
• I know of a lot of people who just haven't paid and they never got another letter about it afterwards, so I guess I'm just going to see if they send me anything else in the mail. I read online the other day in the newspaper that 75% of people who get a camera ticket from this city do not pay, and the city doesn't do anything.  If they do send me something, then I will just have to take a half day at work and pay it. Also, I would just have the BF pay it, but it says on the letter that only I can personally go up there and pay it, no one else. It's extremely frustrating.
• I just added something similar to this in a comment to this post:
• This ticket is one of those stupid camera tickets, and our state is currently debating getting rid of all of them and making it illegal for cities in the state to have them. So if it passes soon, then I just won't have to worry about it because it would automatically make all of the tickets go away.
• Also, it says on the back of the ticket that if I don't pay by the pay-by date, then all they will do is send me another letter with 30 more days to pay.

Vacation planning: For our March vacation, we are now thinking Hawaii, San Juan, or Key West.  When we went to Miami last summer, we took an extremely long one day road trip to the Keys, and it was so beautiful and so much fun. I plan on making some vacation posts soon, as I'm really getting in the mood for it!

•  I want to get more toned for my vacation, and therefore I joined the 10-pound Challenge, hosted by Newlyweds on a Budget. Lose 10 pounds in 12 weeks, win $$$. Are you in?
• However, I won't be aiming for 10 pounds, Just 5 pounds. As 10 pounds would put me at around 100-105 pounds and that's scary skinny for my height (and the fact that I'm trying to build muscle).

How's everything going for you?