In case you’re curious, or plain ‘ol nosy, here are snippets of our lives in the past couple of months:
Our little one turned two this weekend. TWO. I was an emotional mess, a cross between very happy that I had a sweet, healthy, happy two year old and very sad that my baby is no longer a baby. I kept envisioning him heading off to university which would results in pools of tears welling up in my eyes. Drama queen? Just a tad.
It’s midway through spring and the sun is finally out, seeping into every corner of our little condo. While the sunlight is lovely and much welcomed, it has revealed the some ugly truths: our home is looking rather grim. There is so much dust collecting under furniture, our cream-coloured couch is more day-old cream than its former freshly poured white, and there are little handprints on practically every mirror and windowpane. It’s time for spring cleaning.
It’s not just our fixtures that need some sprucing up; our financial budget is in need of tidying as well. It’s time for a budget re-balance.
A couple weeks ago, we tallied up our expenses for the beginning of April to track our progress in our No-Spend challenge. We had an average spend rate of $18/day and 4 no-spend days. Not bad. We patted ourselves on the back. The last two weeks saw a shift in our spending habits and we found ourselves taking out our wallets more often. We spent an additional $925, bringing the monthly total spend on un-necessities and variable expenses (i.e. ones which we have control over on a monthly basis) to $1199 for the month with 13 no-spend days over a span of 30 days.
The Scenario
I signed up for a 5K run earlier this year. I’m not quite sure what possessed me to do so, but I thought it’d be fun; I even convinced friends and family to join me. Some family, namely my sister, laughed at me, repeatedly reminding me that I haven’t run since…well, playing tag in grade school? She is right; I don’t even own a pair of running shoes. In my defence, it was January at the time and I was certain that I would be in shape by the time May rolled around- five months later. Suffice it to say, I clearly haven’t started training for the 5K. Chalk it up to the delusional thinking of a grade A procrastinator.