Money I Spent: Total ~$150. First, had to spend $76 for 2 4-day admissions tickets to the tournament this weekend. Walgreens $22.64 for some ice packs and Lysol for our tournament weekend. Walmart $51.83 for some other volleyball first aid items and snacks for the weekend. The keto fat bombs (shelf stable kind) alone were $10. It’s very difficult to stay on my diet and my fiscal fast while preparing for a road trip. Sacrifices must be made here and there for the greater good of one or the other.
Money I Avoided Spending: From watching the news I know I need to stop touching my face, which I do all the time. (I bite my nails, which is basically like eating germs on purpose.) I figure that if I could paint my nails, which I never ever do, it might be a good visual cue to stop me when I get them near my face. I had pretty much decided to go get a manicure yesterday at lunch. But once I got to Walmart, I decided to just buy a $2 bottle of a pretty light purple nail polish and try to do it myself. (Savings: $20 or so?) Also, the nail polish section can be a little analysis-paralysis-inducing. I first picked up an $8 bottle of nail polish AND an $8 bottle of matte clear coat, but put them both back once I came back to reality.
Extra Money I Found or Made: $0, slow day on the Bay. I need to get back to listing as soon as we get home from this tournament and get the sales revved back up! I have a ton of stuff laying around.
eBay expenses: $0. Didn’t even think about thrifting or anything today!
Use-it-Up Challenge: Nothing new, other than still working on the lotion tube I cut up. I’m keeping it in a drawer so it doesn’t dry out.
Decluttering Challenge: Decluttered the little cabinet we keep the dog food in. Threw away several old bags of rawhide things that are too hard for her. The cabinet could use a good vacuum but I don’t like to vacuum at 4:30 a.m., which is when I was doing this decluttering. 🙂
Thoughts: I don’t like the feeling of knowing that I want to a) stay on my diet and b) stay on my fiscal fast, but there’s a 5-day vacation thrown into the middle of it. I know it will be super difficult and/or impossible (especially the $ part), but all I can do is my best.
Also, I’ve determined that club sports are for rich people, or regular people who never want to retire. This tournament is a “stay to play” tournament, which means you have to stay at the hosting hotel, which can then basically charge whatever they want because you’re captive AND price gouge you on things like parking and food. It’s a 3-day qualifier, which means my kid is out of school at LEAST 2 days. It’s a 7- hour drive from here, so that means 14 MORE hours in the car, on top of the typical 4.5 per week we have on non-tournament weeks (or 7.5 on tournament weeks). AND they schedule matches up until 3:00 on the last day, which means we have to stay another night or else drive home from 4:00 – 11:00 pm. So we’re staying a night at a hotel halfway home for another $100. So we are looking at a $1000 vacation that we never even planned to take.
Fiscal Fasters 