So I was reading an interesting article online about a persons spending habits. They went in to a lot of particular detail about monthly budget, income, debt, etc which I don’t feel a particular need to share forever. Though one thing I did like was the daily spending diary. So I thought what the heck lets keep a one-week diary of all our spending. They sort of broke down their day as to what they did and how money was related to their activities. So, I am basically going to try that this week.
The oddness is I am on call this week so I can’t exactly go anywhere but to be honest its not that different than most weeks except I’ll note today I would have gone to the gym but I’m on call so I guess I’ll just stay home 😛 So here goes.
7/16/23 Day 1
Today I woke up around 8am like I typically do. Kate was already up with Teddy per the norm. He slept pretty poorly but still managed to sleep till almost 7am which is really good for him. I stayed up quite late playing Tears of the Kingdom so was actually pretty groggy. Today we planned to go to West Seattle Summerfest and meet up some parent friends. We also planned on having groceries delivered. I used to go in person but realized for the extra cost of delivery ~$20 I’m not impulse buying as much and I’m saving about two hours of my week. Though there is a dip in the quality of the items we get since I’m not picking them. Teddy went for an early nap, and our groceries atypically arrived about an hour late. Which still worked out with our WestFest schedule.
Groceries: $263 – $45 for some charges which shouldn’t have had.
We arrived at west fest and Kate and I got a coffee from Uptown Express ($12). We then hit up some of the shops. We bought Teddy a new Bubble Gun because his last two had broken but he really loved them so we’re hoping third times the charm ($20). I then saw a cool Kraken t-shirt and picked them up as well. ($38)
We met up with our friend Tim and his son Henry. Since I had had breakfast, I stopped at one of the food trucks and got a great Kenyan savory meat pie. ($15) We also found my friend Craig and his son Answer and continued our way to the Farmer Market part of the festival. They were bought our typical string cheese for teddy ($10), Pasta for our dinner that night ($8), four delicious cookies ($15) and some flowers ($20)
After this Kate went and got Ice Cream ($8) and I took Teddy to the Park with Craig. We had a great time talking about developmental milestones a lot. It was fun that Teddy almost exclusively walks so we ran around a lot and he really had a fun time exploring.
WestFest + Farmers Market: $146
We got home and we put Teddy down for a second nap since he had such and early one. I took a brief power nap. I woke up and paid my CC bill from last month which was about ~$4000 Which sadly is pretty reasonable compared to this month which is already hovering around $8000. That does include $4000 for backyard pavers, $2000 for Junkers for Kate’s Grandma, and $500 for a plane ticket to Ohio. So if you subtract these crazy purchases it not bad, but if you always have crazy purchases is that reasonable to do?
Tonight I ended up putting Teddy down since Kate wasn’t feeling well so got a late start on dinner so only made meatballs and no sauce. Though I had some left-over Marsala sauce that paired extremely well. Kate and I closed the evening by watching the new season of What We do in the Shadows on Hulu. I spent way too much time obsessing over my plant Zeke who’s struggling a lot lately, I saw these tiny bugs in the soil, so I spent $10 on a sticky bug catcher thing on Amazon. Finally, I played Tears of the Kingdom way too late again.
I think about money a lot. Not necessary fearful we can’t afford things, but that am I saving enough of my income and how am I spending so much each month.
Total Spending: $374
7/17/23
Today I woke up around 8 am to Teddy being very angry about being in a bath though happy when I finally stumbled out of bed. Mondays are always a bit stressful because I have an 8:10 am meeting with Teams and Microsoft Admin Center and it’s a fairly stressful meeting. Since I’m on call this week I’ll pretty much be limited to being with in a 10-minute walk from home.
Today is day 53,123 of the Casey working on the backyard with his crew. I’m sure it costs something in the hundreds of dollars range though I’m not entirely sure. The ratio of value to cost is quite excellent so I’m not too worried. Today they removed this old falling apart concrete sidewalk and added the brick and mulch for the yard.
Kate took Teddy for his 15m appt. He still measures small. He’s 6% weight but at least 33% height. I don’t know how we’re going to convince him to live off more than Graham Crackers and air. She got Starbucks on the way home, so I’ll estimate $12. Also our internet bill went through so that was another $65
The rest of the day was uneventful Casey finished up around two and made some progress on the backyard. We had leftover meatball subs for dinner and watched an episode of “From” We get this via hopefully a short lived subscription to MGM+. Kate goes to bed and I continue my journey through Tears of the Kingdom.
Total Spending: $77
7/18/23
I woke up around 8am, and today was a let’s go get coffee day I’ve been stir crazy since I wasn’t allowed to leave the house. We take a lot of walks to get coffee at the junction during the week. It’s a good way for me to get out of the house and the morning are usually pretty nice especially in the summer. Since it was Tuesday, we hit up Uptown Expresso since Bakery Nouveau is closed Monday / Tuesday. I get a Iced Caramel Latte and Kate gets an Iced Mocha, with tip, total is $15.
When we get home Casey says he needs another cash infusion for the project, so I run up to the bank and get him $4000. I don’t know if this should go against my normal spending, but we’ll at least note it in the final report.
Microsoft released a pricing plan for ChatGPT integration in to office product at about $30 a month. This resulted in our already high stock jumping another 20 points. This has huge significance for my portfolio. Even though I’ve sold almost 50k in stock this summer. I still somehow have more money than I did in April.
I eat lunch while Kate and Teddy are sleeping of a simple Turkey sandwich. My day is full of meetings and diagnosing some weird issue I was seeing with my new code deployment. I finish up work around my typical 5pm. I hang out with Kate and Teddy for a bit while he eats dinner. Tonight I decide to grill up some wings and corn on the cob. I know very American. Kate puts teddy to bed while I make dinner.
After dinner we watched AppleTV+. We are trying to finish up “Loot” and “The Big Door Prize” Loot is pretty entertaining comedy with an actor I really like from Harley Quinn. The Big Door Prize started off promising but has progressively gotten more and more boring. After Kate goes to bed I play more Tears of the Kingdom.
I ended up looking at Blind (Anonymous Tech Company Social Media). I don’t know why I look at this since its just people complaining about their pay or stock. I always felt I had a decent income but watching people complain about 250k a year being peanut is always a bit distressing. It make me wonder if I should quit my job and look for other opportunities. I got a very lucrative offer at Amazon right before Covid and turned it down because I was afraid of all the stress that would happen. I know my current role is pretty easy and with the kid on the way its hard to want to take on a tougher role for more money that I really don’t need. Of course, there’s always that little voice in my head saying but you could make 400k a year! Too be honest its very destructive mental cycle.
Total Spending: $4015
7/19/23
Today was another coffee day. I woke up and felt a bit anxious and needed a walk. So with no meetings we head up to Bakery Nouveau with Teddy. Its really lovely just living so close to such a hometowny feel area. West Seattle is still Seattle but it has such strong mainstreet vibes. It has the density to support tons of store, but lots of single family homes so you can still easily raise a family. So going on a morning walk that inevitably spends money still feels nice. I got a spinach-feta croissant with a strawberry lemonade. Kate got a cold brew with a ham and cheese croissant. ($27)
Afterwards we parted ways. Kate went to the park with Teddy since it will be hot this afternoon and I headed back home to work for a few hours.
Kate paid a medical bill for all of her pregnancy testing ($39) There’s a lot of small bills that come a long with being pregnant and a few very large. I thought this was going to be the year we didn’t max out our deductible but here we are lol. The oddness is even though I have a massive HAS aka north of 50k I never use it to pay our expenses. I’m using it as a sneaky retirement account. Your welcome children. I do have a $900 bill for our NIPT test that I am avoiding paying until August when my higher income kicks in for the year.
For dinner I made sloppy joes which is one of the few meat products I can convince Teddy to eat. But hey homemade sloppyjoes is pretty flavorful and comes together in less than an hour. Its also a rare moment where we all sit down to eat as a family. Afterwards Kate and I watched another episode of From and I stayed up late playing Tears of the Kingdom. I swear I’m going to beat this game before my Niece arrives for her summer vacation.
Total Spending: $66
7/20/23
Although I would love it if today was a Coffee day instead it was a 9am meeting kind of day. So instead Kate went with Teddy to get coffee and pick up some things at the grocery store that we needed for dinner. Coffee $10, Safeway $12. She hit up the park afterwards and I attended all the meetings.
After she came back Teddy and her took a nap. Eventually Kate’s Mom and Brother came over to help watch Teddy while Kate focused on cleaning the basement in preparation for Sienna coming. Conner was very excited after a job interview, he had, so that was great to hear.
I finished work early because it was so hot in my office and I used that time to setup the portable AC in our bedroom. Though it hasn’t been “That” necessary this summer, when you need an AC its amazing to just have one at the ready. I do feel the need to buy a wall unit to just mount in our living room, though based on the way our windows open (horizontal instead of vertical) it’s a pain in the ass to get one.
After her family left I made us some brats and corn on the cob. I used to hate corn on the cob because it was sooo bland as a kid, but now that I discovered the joy of grilling it I’ve done a 180. We ended up watching the “Red Mirror” episode of Black Mirror it was a ok… not as interesting as I had hope so solid C+. Per tradition I continue to play Tears of the Kingdom before bed, I think I’ve mapped 95% of the depths and just have the last few main quests to finish up.
Total Spending $22.
Ok I failed at this by getting too distracted 🙁