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Remember that one time when we all jumped on Stephanie’s Wallet Watch bandwagon? Yeah, I remembered that one time the whole damn month of April. A spending freeze was one of my winter goals that I never accomplished. I wanted to go a month without purchasing stuff that was not budgeted. Well, this was a wallet watch challenge, not a spending freeze. In theory, it sounded better to me.

My parameters:

1. Eat out only once a week for lunch.

2. Stay in more on the weekends, going out to eat minimally.

3. Do not spend any extra money on items that were not planned purchases.

How did I do?

We did pretty good on staying in more on the weekends. We didn’t really go crazy at all as a matter of fact.

I did eat lunch out on Fridays with my girls group as planned, however, I did have one extra lunch out with my friend Amanda whom I have been trying to meet up with for a long time. While it was an infraction, it was well worth it.

Oh, and I had a blate with Meighan that was unplanned, but I a mean really? It was totally worth it!

Where else did I have an infraction you ask?

Well, because I am such a beast, I out grew my light weights and had to go purchase some new ones. I don’t really see this as an unnecessary spend as it was for my health….but it was not planned.

Also, I needed a new stability ball as mine is from college and has seen better days. I mean, it was like $9.87 at Walmart and again…something I needed for my health.

Umm just so you know, her abs do not come in the box. I was disappointed too.

About mid month I realized that I had not a thing to wear to my friend’s wedding that I would be attending. My usual dress that I wear happened to be the color of her bridesmaid dresses and mother dresses and while I would have loved to just pretended I was in the bridal party…I didn’t want to ruffle any feathers. Soooo basically this unplanned purchase was a necessity as well.

I mean….the dress was on sale AND I had a coupon. It ended up being $31.99. I was loosing money by not purchasing it. Or something like that.

So, how do I feel about wallet watch?

I don’t like to restrict myself. I am glad I participated at least once to say I did it…but I am not a huge fan. I don’t really think that I spend a lot of unnecessary money to start with. I work hard….I like to enjoy myself a little bit. Plus, retail therapy is real my friends. And it is great.

What did I learn?

As you saw above, I can justify just about anything. Ha!

In other budget news, one of my goals for spring was for Chris and I to create a budget to sort of follow. Chris actually did it on his own before we even talked about it…so yay for goals accomplished that I didn’t even have to do! He built in money for going out, fun money and the necessities…as well as money to transfer to savings and such. I would much rather have that then a wallet watch or spending freeze. It sounds less constricting in my head.

We also found ways to cut down on some of our bills like our cell phone bill, satellite, an error on our home owners insurance, and a few other things. So yay!!!! Pay close attention to those things, they are not error proof, and you might be paying for services you aren’t using.

Did you participate in wallet watch? How did you do? What do you do to save money? Have you ever created a budget to follow?

Another weekend has come and gone. I am not going to lie, I struggled a little to get out of bed this morning and be excited about my work out, as it was leg day. Leg day on a Monday = a rough time! I did it it though, so that is all that really matters. Right?!?! Let’s get on with my weekend shenanigans, shall we? Warning : food porn ahead. Yum yum yum.

Friday for lunch I met the girls at O’Carrs in Homewood. It was my first time going there and I ordered the chicken salad and fruit plate. The chicken salad was great and came with like 6 different types of crackers. And the fruit? Best fruit plate ever!!! There were grapes, oranges, grapefruit, strawberries, cinnamon bananas, banana chips, raisins, plums, peaches, kiwi, mango, cantaloupe, honeydew and maybe even some other stuff. Amazing.

Friday evening Chris and I stopped by an event at the cigar lounge, then ordered some Chinese food to take home. I got the egg drop soup and a side of fried rice.

Saturday morning I cleaned the house, then we headed to some pawn shops. I ordered Chris’s birthday present online and it came Friday afternoon. I got him a new DJ controller with lots of fancy crap that he was super excited about. He decided that he needed a new amp because our set up downstairs doesn’t fully support it. Nothing like some pawn shopping in the ghetto to get your afternoon started right, ya know!

We didn’t really have much luck, and by 4:00 pm I was starving…so we headed to Moe’s BBQ in Lakeview to grab some food and drinks. We found a spot on the patio and it was perfect!!!

I was drinking Abita Strawberry and Chris had Good People Snakehandler.

While we were sitting there, we found out that our friends from Huntsville were in town and they met up with us. Yay for impromptu visits!

Smoked turkey with baked beans, potato salad and corn bread. Best corn bread EVER!

After Moe’s we headed over to World of Beer for a little while. I ordered a Lindeman’s Raspberry Framboise and a Well’s Banana Bread beer. Both were delish! 

After World of Beer, we headed over to Jim n Nicks for a later dinner. I enjoyed a turkey baked potato. Yummmm!

Sunday – Sunday morning we caught up on Grimm and then I meal planned and headed to the grocery store to get our shopping done for the week. I came home and prepped all the fruits and made Mediterranean Couscous salad for lunches.

And that was the weekend folks. I hope everyone had a great one! Does anyone know where I can exchange my Monday for another day? Just wondering….

1. Favorite purchase: This pug statue I found last night at TJ Maxx! I have had my eye on these for awhile, but they never had anything that resembled either of my dogs. The cashier who rang me up was like awe do you have a bulldog? I was like ummm I thought that was a pug. She was like well I guess it is sort of close to either. I was like lets go with pug…it makes me feel better! This morning I asked Chris if he noticed our new addition. He said “How did we ever live without it?” I ask myself that same question!

2. Favorite Song – Lil Wayne Bow Chicka Wow Wow. I just freaking love this song. Your welcome.

Thursdays have been a day for me telling stories from the past as of late. I really have been enjoying remembering things that might not have been funny at the time….but are funny as hell now!!! That and….I have all this written out for me to reflect back on one day when my memory might not be so great. So there’s that.

Remember disposable cameras? If you don’t, you are too young and you can shut your face. But seriously, in college my friends and I usually took picture with disposable cameras and had to take them to Walgreen’s or Eckerd (which I guess is Rite Aid now) to be developed. Remember Eckerd?

This was all fine and dandy. It was always fun to go pick them up a few hours later….and you couldn’t wait to tear into that photo envelope and see all the pretty pictures of you and your friends dancing drunk white people style to Fever for the Flava by Hot Action Cops.

Today is the 10th anniversary of Mean Girls. Say whaaaaa? Ten years? Really? Well whip out your pink and lets get to some confessions!

–I skipped my work out yesterday morning. Crazy weather had me up way WAY past my bed time. I had full intentions of making it up when I got home last night…but no. Not so much.

–So this morning? My workout kicked my ass.

–I believe in the five second rule. No need to waste perfectly good food.

–Captcha – I really hate it. Like really. Turn it off!!! Yesterday I was leaving a comment for someone and one of the words was anxiety. WTF? I didn’t need that weird omen as I was worrying about storms. It was just so wrong. Next time I cant get it the first time, I am not leaving my comment.

–I find flip flops with my dress pants for work totally acceptable. They are nice flip flops, not rubber Old Navy ones.

–I don’t like when my food touches on my plate. Like just give me a bigger freaking plate so that my food world can be at peace.

–I really hate when I am in the break room enjoying my lunch and reading my book…then some loud ass people come in and have a 10 minute conversation right next to me. Like seriously. I am READING. Go talk somewhere else. You aren’t even in here to eat.

–I have a hard time picking out stuff for my mom for mother’s day. Not because I can’t think of anything, but because I have so many damn ideas in my head that I can’t decide which one to go with. So I wait and wait and wait and end up buying something last minute because I waited to long and couldn’t decide.

–Apparently I work better under pressure.

–The next person that jump cuts me in line is going to be sorry. I HATE when I am in line at say Target and they decided to open a new register and while I have been standing in line for a few minutes now, your sorry ass just walks up and goes to the new register while I am trying to get over there after they told me I could. Then, you realize that the cashier was waiting on me, yet you still go ahead and check out. RUDE! I will sigh loudly and make a snarky comment out loud and give you the evil eye the entire time.

–I am just really really confused about how in the hell today is the last day of April already?

–Every year I have to share this somewhere. Today is your lucky day!