Today I had a doctor's appointment in Kansas City. Normally, I would have gone shopping after my appointment, but today I managed to get out of Kansas City having only spent $14.20 on non-essential items. I decided I was allowed to spend $8 at Salvation Army in honor of the 8 lbs I had officially lost since my last appointment (yea Lap Band!). I got some books for myself and some for my mother (after consulting with her on the phone and determining that she didn't already have them). Since I am technically still a "student" I get a 20% discount at Salvation Army, so my total spent was $7.20, not too bad, considering I got 11 books and a bag of old (1960s era) cookie cutters, including a donut cutter with a removable center to make biscuits. This is one kitchen implement which I did not yet have, and one which I had been looking to buy for quite some time. The other $7.00 was spent at Hobby Lobby. I returned $19.00 worth of beading supplies (I thought I was going to make Christmas ornaments, but never found the time and wound up just buying more pre-made ornaments after Christmas). I got some scrapbooking supplies for the project I'm working on for Creative Writing. I got some sheets of cute paper, some vellum and a mouse stamp (the project we're working on is called "the mouse and the poet"). I also got some stickers and some empty sheets to add to the scrapbook I already have. I really didn't want to go over my $19.00, but I managed to get pretty close. I did have another $15 worth of things picked out to buy, but put them back as I decided they weren't "necessary" to my project. Though I did spend some money, I got about 3 hours of fun shopping time from my $14.20. That's a lot cheaper than my normal fare from last year would have been...$20 at Salvation Army and another $20 or $25 at Hobby Lobby, $10 - $20 at Office Depot to buy more office supplies that I really didn't need, not to mention the obligatory stop at Wal-Mart, which invariably cost me at least $50. So comparatively I spent at least $86.oo LESS this trip than I did every time I went down last year. That's over $1,000 a year saved, just by not taking advantage of my monthly trip to Kansas City to go shopping.
When I got home, I went to the grocery store and spent all of $8.00. For the next couple of days I'm supposed to eat foods I don't have to chew, so I got some whole milk to make mashed potatoes with they just taste better with whole milk vs. the skim I drink. I also got some cheese (on sale 4 pkgs for $5) and a package of chocolate pudding cups. I like putting some cheese in my mashed potatoes, it makes me feel like I'm getting at least a bit of protein with my meal.
I'm really looking forward to my long weekend. I'm going to be sending out some more applications, always a fun thing to do... I'm thinking that I will spend all afternoon Friday filling out applications and doing laundry. I'm going to try and speed my application process up by having folders with all of the necessary extras in them already (transcripts, sample syllabus, references, etc) and then just putting the necessary information into each folder as I fill out the applications. Every application calls for a slight variation of these, so I'm hoping I can get 6 or 7 applications filled out that afternoon. Maybe I can get an application done in the time it takes for a load of laundry to get dry...that might be a good way to remember my laundry...check it every time I get an application finished.
I wish everyone a happy Valentine's weekend, but remember that the best gift of all is one which shows love, not how much money they spend. My favorite Valentine's Day gift so far has to be when my boyfriend at the time showed up at my house with a pound of bacon, a dozen eggs, a box of pancake mix and all the extras. He made me breakfast in bed in my own house (then did the dishes afterwards!). I don't remember if he got me roses of not, but I'll always remember seeing him standing at the door with the bacon and eggs in his hands, he'd paid attention when I'd told him how much I loved breakfast foods and how much I hated doing dishes. To this day, every time I smell hickory smoked bacon frying I think of him and how loved I felt on that particular Valentine's Day.
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