A (qualified) No-Spend Day

Ah!  The pleasures of not spending money.

Of course, I'm talking specifically about money coming out of my wallet -- not the money I saw The Husband shell out right in front of me.

Well, come to think of it, I guess I did spend some money.  I transferred $42.00 this morning from my checking account into The Daughter's.

Being as it's the first day of the month, it was also allowance day.  If you'll recall, under our new allowance agreement with The Daughter, I transfer $100 into her checking account and The Husband shells out $25 in cash.  Well, this morning she requested a different arrangement.  She needed to reimburse a classmate's friend for a Jason Mraz concert ticket so she wanted her usual $25 plus another $58 in cash.  That left me with only $42 to transfer instead of all $100.

Her request lightened The Husband's wallet significantly but the damage wasn't done yet.  The Son, on his toes for once, asked for his allowance too.  [You'll remember that the terms of his allowance are such that he has to remember to ask for his allowance at any point within the month.  Any allowances left unclaimed at the end of the month are forfeited.]  His $6 weekly allowance, paid monthly and calculated based on the number of Fridays in the given month, came to $24.

So the allowance damage, all told, was $149.

Ah, but I wasn't yet done watching The Husband shell out cash.  Earlier this summer we made our final payment on the Impreza (financed for 2 years at 1.9% back in the day when we could earn more that that rate in savings).  Last week the cleared title arrived in the mail.  As we're both named on the title, The Husband wanted me to go with him to the DMV to have it retitled.  Turned out I didn't really need to go -- she only needed one of us to sign the papers -- and as the fee came to only $7 and change, The Husband paid cash.  Funny thing is, he kept sweating how much the fee would be because he'd forgotten to bring a checkbook -- doesn't carry one as a matter of course -- but was reassured by the fact that I had two with me just in case.  I never carry cash but never leave home without my army of credit cards and both check books.  He always carries cash and a couple of cards but never has a checkbook on him.  What's that about Jack Sprat...?

And while we're on the subject of Jack Sprat -- I keep forgetting to mention that I've had quite a bit of success in losing some of these extra pounds that I picked up somewhere along to the way to 45.  When I saw my Endocrinologist back in January he confirmed what I'd noticed -- I'd put on more than a couple of pounds.  In fact, at 149, I was my heaviest non-pregnancy weight ever.  And I really, really didn't like it.  It's not just a matter of vanity either -- my asthma is greatly aggravated when I carry extra weight.  My ideal weight, the weight at which I feel my very best, is about 120.  Too much under that and people start talking.  Too much over that and I feel tired and sluggish.

I think it's a combination of a concerted effort to use an old NordicTrack machine handed down from my sister and being on an adequate thyroid-replacement dosage that has helped me drop almost 15 pounds since May.  I have another 15 to go but I'm nearly giddy with pleasure at my success so far.

From all of the horror stories I've heard about how much  more difficult it is to lose weight after a "certain age", and then this summer turning a "certain age", I was feeling really depressed about the odds of ever finding my old, fit self.  I used to dread getting dressed because I only had one pair of jeans and they were uncomfortably tight and a depressing reminder of my growing girth.  Now those jeans are almost too baggy as are the second-pair-in-the-same-size-but-for-some-reason-smaller jeans.  I'm very, very close to fitting into an actual smaller size -- well, they probably do fit but I'm not big on tight jeans.

Yesterday I did a little archeological dig on the top closet shelf and found several strata of jeans, each lower level a smaller waist size.  I really should get rid of the 29's.  If I get that skinny again it's probably not a good thing.  But 30 or 31, that's an honorable goal right?  Of course, Levi's 501s waist sizes are automatically a bit tough on the old ego.  I swim in The Son's Levis size 31x34 559's while my own 32x36 501's sit in my room as a silent encouragement to drop just another pound or two.

As for Daily Doing.... well, we won't go into that right now.  I did go to the DMV with The Husband and I did work on the web project I probably won't accept payment for and I did go to the Back-To-School event for parents.  Tomorrow I drive The Son's class on a Geology field trip -- we'll be gone from 7:15 until around 4 so don't look for any serious "doing" until Thursday at the earliest.  Oh... wait, I did do several loads of laundry.  Do, as in wash, dry, and dump on various pieces of furniture already hopelessly buried under previous loads of clean laundry.  It feels rather hopeless.....

Related posts:

1. Stop Spending My Money, Mom
2. Day 121: Clothing
3. $$: Allowance, Food, & Supplies
4. $$: Allowances
5. Day 90: Gutter Balls!