Suburban Wife’s Daily Dollar Diary

a financial voyeur’s dream come true: all the intimate details of how, where, and why I spend money

Day 120: Food and Charity

Posted on | December 30, 2007 |

My mom’s here for a week-long visit.  It’s going to take a ton of self-discipline on my part to keep from spending money I wouldn’t otherwise spend.  My mom’s a shop-a-holic and a bad influence — even more so on The Daughter than on me.  :-(

I wrote a check to my Church — $15.00 for my weekly offering.

Talk about the “latte factor.”  I don’t even drink coffee (or anything, for that matter, other than water) but I still managed to go to Starbucks twice today and spend a total of $13.36!  My mom won’t drink anything but designer coffee.  The Husband drinks nothing but instant.  Thus, mom needed to find a Starbucks before church this morning but we were running late so we went to church first, dropped off The Son, and, being who I am, I asked around at church if anyone wanted me to pick up a designer coffee for them while I was out.  I got two orders; with my mom’s that came to three “shorts” for $4.54.

Then, on the way home, she needed the vente latte she’d passed up earlier because of our tight schedule.  Her latte and two chocolate milks for the kids set me back another $8.82.  I hate Starbucks!

After church but before Starbucks, we made our weekly stop at Einstein Bros. Bagels for a dozen bucket deal (baker’s dozen bagels and 2 tubs of schmear) plus a root beer for The Son — $14.42.

This afternoon my mom and I ran out to Whole Foods for the ingredients needed for tomorrow’s potluck dishes (our annual New Year’s Eve evening at the church) plus a few staples we needed to stock up on.  I spent $73.89 on:

  • quart of buttermilk — $2.99
  • 3 boxes of organic Le Boles lasagna pasta — $2.49/ea.
  • Muir organic tomato sauce — $1.99
  • Muir no salt added organic tomato sauce — $1.69
  • Ah! Laska chocolate sauce — $4.99
  • organic sliced turkey breast — $5.99
  • organic sliced roast beef — $4.99
  • ground beef — $3.12 (on sale for $1.99/lb!)
  • grated parmesean cheese — $3.49
  • mozzarella cheese — $7.99
  • ricotta cheese –$3.99
  • green leaf lettuce — $2.49
  • designer “fingerling” tiny potatoes — $2.99
  • scallions — $0.99
  • cucumber — $1.47
  • pears — $1.77
  • granny smith apples — $6.67
  • measuring spoons — $5.99
  • bag credit — ($0.30)
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Comments

2 Responses to “Day 120: Food and Charity”

  1. tj
    December 31st, 2007 @ 12:43 am

    Cripes! That better be a lot of apples!

    I have a love hate thing for Starbucks. I give them about 25.00 a week… ugh… $100 a month… ARGH… 1200 a year.

    It’s pretty sad when you look it like that :-(

  2. Elizabeth
    December 31st, 2007 @ 12:31 pm
    Cripes! That better be a lot of apples!

    Based on your comment, I looked at my post expecting to find a typo. But no, I did spend $6.67 on 5 organic Grannie Smith apples :-P

    You’re right, $1,200 per year is a pretty amazing (and depressing figure). But one doesn’t have to have a Starbucks habit to learn something from the “latte factor” concept. I don’t drink coffee but I easily fritter away $1,200 a year on other small, annoyingly unnecessary purchases.

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