The Container Store — ($35.31)
I returned four items from my shopping spree last week:

First, the plastic lid to storage box on coasters.  Come on, let’s be realistic here — it will be a miracle if I can get The Son to actually contain his socks and misc stuff in these containers to begin with; asking him to use a lid is beyond unrealistic.

Second, the small concealed book shelf.  I really like the concept of these but I’m more of a book-stack-on-a-chair-I-can move kind of person (see photo).

Third was the large concealed book shelf (returned for the same reason as above).

And fourth, I returned tie rack because I found a cheaper one I liked better at Target.

Waldenbooks — ($16.79)
I returned the book The Daughter bought here because we ended up having to re-purchase it an independent book store so we could also buy a ticket to the author’s book signing.

J.Crew — $21.52
It has become clear over the past few weeks that The Son simply does not have enough t-shirts.  He’s running out of clean t-shirts way before the next laundry cycle happens.

Sur La Table — $21.54
I bought a 24-cartridge box of iSi N20 cream charger cartridges.  Earlier this year when my mom sold her house and nearly all of her possessions, the number one item I asked for was her iSi whip cream whipper.  She only had two cartridges left and I used one of them at The Husband’s birthday party earlier this month.  Now we’re flush with Nitrous Oxide

BTW, I also learned why I got sick the other night after eating strawberries and whipped cream with The Son.  Turns out that commercial powdered sugar contains cornstarch.  [heavy sarcasm] Silly me, I forgot to read the sugar bag for ingredients. [/heavy sarcasm]

Total Spent Today: $184.09 

I spent nearly the entire day driving.  Ugh.  For as much driving as I did, I actually did very little shopping.  With 4 people with busy schedules, three drivers, and two cars, our coordination of vehicles and schedules is sometimes quite complicated.

Safeway — $70.06
After dropping The Husband off at his office so I could have a car for the day’s events, my first stop was the gas station.  The Tank’s tank was nearly dry.  I pumped 19.36 gallons at $3.619/gallon.  [The Husband gave me his Safeway loyalty card on which he’d recently made a purchase over $50 which earned him a $0.10/gal discount.  Even with just my regular everyday membership discount of $0.03/gal. discount, this station always has the best per-gallon price around.]  My odometer read 123,574.

Costco — $3.87
A chicken bake thing and a soda for The Son.

Costco — $42.96

• a large container of Costco’s chocolate chunk cookies — $6.49
• a 2-loaf bag of Orowheat 7-grain bread — $4.99
• a 2-pack of Cetaphil hand lotion — $15.49
• a box of Goldfish crackers — $7.99
• my guilty indulgence — the latest Alexander McCall Smith paperback The Good Husband of Zebra Drive* – $7.99

REI — $32.35
I still had a merchandise credit of $39.87 (a result of returning my old BPA-containing Nalgene bottles) and The Son wanted his own pair of Crocs so The Husband and I agreed it was best to go ahead and redeem the credit before I had a chance to lose it.  The Son’s been wearing my Crocs for a couple of years now; when I received my Crocs as a gift, they fit him.  Now, however his size 11’s won’t even fit down into the toe box which leaves several inches of heel hanging over the back.  He finds them very practical for wearing to and from baseball — before and after wearing his metal cleats.

Silly boy and creature of habit that he is, he picked out the same sh*t brown color that I have.  Of all the colors he could have chosen (I thought he’d go for the black), he had to choose the one he was familiar with.

I’m sure I could have gotten the Crocs cheaper somewhere else but we had the merchandise credit with no other immediate REI-available purchases in mind so we felt it best to just do it this way.  BTW, the clerk offered to give me the remainder of my merchandise credit, $7.52, in cash which made me very happy.

Kroger — $34.85
I purchased one hundred dollar’s worth of Santa Cruz organic lemonade for $34.85.  The lemonade is an indulgence, I know, but one I find easy to make.  This lemonade is hands-down the very best lemonade on the market.  And I love that it’s organic.  It wasn’t actually all lemonade; I bought one bottle of Limeade (The Husband likes that flavor); 13 bottles of regular Lemonade; and the remainder were split about evenly between Raspberry Lemonade (my personal favorite) and Strawberry Lemonade (The Son’s favorite).

At $1.00 a jar, this stuff is cheaper than bottled water.  Cheaper than’s Dole’s non-organic juice.  Plus it comes in glass bottles which can be reused or recycled and won’t leech any chemicals.

I’ll continue stocking up on these products as long as the sale lasts — I think it will go all week — and store it in our basement.  I would have bought more today if I could have but I bought every single Lemonade, Raspberry, and Strawberry bottle they had in stock.

Total Spent Today:  $107.73 

Wild Oats — $9.29
The Son needed to go sandal shopping (see below) but after a full, hot morning of running around and playing games on the last day of school, he needed a little refreshment before braving the shoe store. 

• tray of avocado roll sushi — $4.75
• can of house soda pop — $.79
• an Odwalla Strawberry C Monster (for me) — $3.29

Off-Broadway Shoe Warehouse — $59.34
The Son picked a pair of Teva Spoiler Classic sandals — no big surprise there since he’s been wearing that brand and style for years and years — probably since they first came out with that model, way back in the day when we shopped at the children’s shoe store and couldn’t imagine having to shop in a big people’s shoe store for children’s feet.  BTW, that price beats the heck out of the $80 retail being charged by REI and the like.

Kroger — $39.10
The Husband, The Son, and I stopped at the grocery store for some supplies and some quick, frozen dinners since the hour was late and I was exhausted from having watched a nail-biter of a baseball game (The Son’s team lost but they put up a good fight).

• 2 cartons of Horizon chocolate milk — $3.19/ea. (saved $0.50/ea.)
• Santa Cruz lemonade — $1.00 (saved $1.89)
• Santa Cruz limeade — $1.00 (saved $1.89)
• Dole Orange/Peach/Mango juice — $2.19 (saved $1.50)
• M&M’s (for the penny candy jar) — $2.50 (saved $0.89)
• Kroger medium cheddar — $2.50 (saved $0.19)
• Kroger sharp cheddar — $2.50 (saved $0.19)
• Stouffer’s frozen fish dinner — $2.00 (saved $1.28)
• Stouffer’s frozen shrimp scampi — $2.00 (saved $0.94)
• Hungry Man frozen dinner — $2.61
• Oberto beef jerkey — $5.49 (saved $0.50)
• G&W sugar — $2.99
• Morton salt — $0.59 (saved $0.10)
• 1.6# organic navel oranges — $2.54
• 4 gala apples — $2.00
• bag credits — ($0.15)

[I take no responsiblity for the junky frozen meals purchased.  When The Husband is shopping, he gets to buy what he wants to buy.  When I leave town, the first thing he does is buy a loaf of Wonder bread and some type of unidentifiable packaged meat.  What can I say; we come from very different backgrounds.]

Total Spent Today: $298.31
Net Spent Today: $243.33 

REI — ($50.13)
As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I collected all of our old Nalgene bottles (well, all the ones the kids could find — one of The Daughter’s is still missing) to return for a refund/store credit.  The return process took a couple of minutes but overall went very smoothly.  Ironically, the computer showed a record of my 2001 purchase of two older, smaller bottles I returned but had no record at all of the large bottles I purchased last October.  The clerk still issued store credit on the larger bottles — partly, I think, due to the fact that all of the bottles had the name REI stamped on them as bold as you please (they must have been a special-issue Nalgene manufacturered specifically for REI stores).

The only downside to this whole transaction is that, for whatever reason, the clerk wouldn’t put my store credit on a REI gift card.  My credit comes in the form of a paper receipt that I can use in any REI store or on-line but I must have the receipt.  If I lose it, I’m S.O.L.

REI — $10.26
Spent in the form of store credit (my paper receipt now states I have a credit of $39.87).  I bought myself a red wide-mouth Nalgene bottle.

Auto Stereo Store — $277.57
I’ve been shopping for car stereos for the past month or so and just last week finally decided on the model I wanted.  So today we did a little car juggling so I could have The Husband’s Impreza.  The stereo is The Husband’s Father’s Day gift.  But it’s not for him at all.  It’s for The Daughter.  Here’s what happened:

The Impreza came with a very bare-bones stereo.  Two FM bands, one AM band, and a single disc CD player.  Nice and functional but nothing special.  What it’s really missing is an iPod/aux input capability.

I’m a realist.  I know how important music is to 16yo girls and I know what a distraction music and CD’s and radios and iPods can be for a new driver (well, any driver but especially new drivers).  So I presented my argument to The Husband several weeks ago — we should install an iPod interface stereo in the name of safety.  The criteria was very specific:  the 16yo had to be able to control the iPod through the stereo itself leaving her hands and attention free for driving and the buttons and layout had to be simple enough for a 73-yo radio-listening dad.

Finding a stereo that met both criteria was harder than I’d expected it to be.  I ended up going with an Alpine CDA-9884.  Happy early Father’s Day, sweetie 

Target — $10.48
I found a Michael Graves tie/belt hanger  ($3.99) that I like better than the one I bought the other day.  I also bought two 3-packs of skirt hangers ($2.99/ea.) for The Daughter’s closet.  Each hanger has a metal center hook so you can actually hang another hanger from the first hanger instead of having each individual hanger hang from the closet rod.  Helps save closet space which is at a premium in The Daughter’s closet (yeah, she has more clothes that she probably needs but mostly it’s just a tiny closet).

Once Upon a Child — ($5.85)
I took my bag of rejects from yesterday’s Plato’s Closet run to see what OUAC would do with the contents.  I had slightly more sucess (in # of items accepted) but their value was lower.  They rejected several things because they were too large (those in-between sizes of 16 and 18 don’t have much resale value, apparently) but they did accept 4 pair of Old Navy shorts.  Anyway, it’s another $5.85 I didn’t have this morning.

Since all of the items sold were The Son’s, I’ve added $5.85 back into his clothing budget category in my YNAB program*.

Actually posted on May 15 — catching up with daily expenditures.

A totally crazy day — driving from here to there; doing this and that.  In between all of that craziness, I found a few minutes to run an errand I’d been meaning to do for weeks and weeks:

Old Navy — $15.04
Two pair of cotton PJ pants for The Son — deeply discounted, too.  If past summers are any indication, even these lightweight cotton pants will be too much to wear to bed in the heat of the summer.  I don’t know what he’ll want to wear during the heat waves but I imagine he’ll let me know when he needs something else.

Also spent today, though not by my own hand:

Mortgage — $1,640.10
I don’t include this expense every month because, as I said, it’s not a payment I make.  It’s one of those regular monthly payments that The Husband takes care of.  Since I’m reconstructing my expenses from my YNAB program, however, I see that this payment was entered automatically into my budget today so I thought I might as well include it.

Actually posted on May 4 — still traveling but finally in a location where time and internet access are available at the same time.

Uni Qlo — $15.50
A cool t-shirt with a cobra graphic — for The Grandson #1 whose birthday is later this month.

Uni Qlo — $39.75
A fabulous light-weight down jacket for — myself!

Parking — $72.00
Can you believe the cost for parking a car for 48 hours?!

Actually posted on May 4 — still traveling but finally in a location where time and internet access are available at the same time.

My mom and I are in The Big Apple (aka New York City) visiting my brother, my sister-in-law, and my niece.  They live in Manhattan just blocks away from Ground Zero.

Today we spent some time doing the tourist thing — shopping for gifts and souvenirs for family back home.  Here’s what I found:

Kate’s Paperie — $5.42
A cool notebook for The Daughter.

cash — $0.75
A bottled water for my mom.

Borders — $10.78
A NYC guidebook.

Pearl River Mart — $53.07

• A silk kimono which will be given as a birthday gift to Granddaughter #1 later this month
• Eye Bod — a cool plastic eyeglasses holder shaped like a funny character — for The Son
• Chinese Take-Out shaped lamp — for The Son’s room

street vendor/cash — $2.50
A Statue-of-Liberty-shaped refrigerator magnet — to add to our collection of fun magnets.

Actually posted on May 4 — still traveling but finally in a location where time and internet access are available at the same time.

I had a no-spend day — in that I didn’t spend any money directly.  My mom and I walked for miles and miles and had a great time, took tons of photos, saw tons of sites, had tons of fun.  And didn’t spend a dime.

However, I did have to make a bank transfer to reimburse The Daughter for two purchases she made:

Old Navy — $19.37
Two shirts for herself.  I’m not sure what type or color because I haven’t seen them yet.  I know that she needs to replace some of her shirts so I have no complaints about this purchase.  Besides, even after this purchase she still has a balance of $221.00 in her clothing allowance.

Borders — $16.16
A book needed for school or a school project.

Total Spent Today: $ 44.95
Net Spent Today: ($ 12.50)

Dentist — $0.00
I started the day with an early appointment at the dentist’s to have my teeth cleaned.  Sleeping with my CPAP mask tends to make the calcium buildup on my teeth happen faster so this is a 4-month appointment instead of a 6-month.  That means that under normal circumstances I would have had to pay out-of-pocket for the appointment.  However, due to an insurance snafu last year we actually had a credit at the dentist’s office so this cleaning will be applied to that credit amount.  So, no out-of-pocket expense this time.  And the next 4-month cleaning will be covered by the insurance.  Life is good but my mouth is a tad sore.

Lowe’s — $13.98
I believe this is an absolute first for me — I’ve walked out of a home improvement store without buying anything and I’ve walked out buying a bunch of stuff but I don’t believe that I’ve ever walked out having purchased only one item.  And that single item was a $12 doorbell button.  Now we have a functioning doorbell again.  Oh, and it’s lighted too.  Pretty cool.  I went with a very simple oil-rubbed bronze plaque and a simple round button with a light ring.  I’m all about the understated elegance 

Tuesday Morning — ($12.90)
I returned the lampshade I bought the other day.

Target — $11.88
The Daughter had to exchange the bra she bought the other day because she grabbed the right size but the wrong style.  Now she has the necessary strapless she’ll need to wear to the school dance next month.  The strapless model was more expensive than the regular bra she bought the other day so I paid the $4.00 difference.

The other item purchased was a black chiffon ribbon that The Daughter will use in her hair for the dance; the black will tie in with the black in her new shoes since there’s no black in the dress.

The Home Depot — ($44.55)

I returned all of the Rubbermaid FastTrack items I purchased last week.  It wasn’t easy but I think it was the right decision.

Target — $19.09
While standing in line to return the bra The Daughter went into an empassioned 16-yo justification for a new smaller schoolbag.  I listed, though not terribly patiently, and then reminded her that she’s allowed to do whatever she wants with her clothing allowance — except exceed her current balance.  Her eyes lit up and I saw the gears start to grind  :-p

However, she walked out of the store on our first visit today without purchasing a new bag.  She’d looked but wasn’t ready to buy.  By the time we were done in The Home Depot, though, she’d decided that the black bag she’d seen was what she wanted.  At first I was annoyed that we had to go back to Target (it was on our way, though).  Then I remembered that we were out of chocolate milk! 

So she picked out her bag ($9.99) and I picked up two 1/2-gallon cartons of Horizon chocolate milk ($3.99/ea.)

Ah, another no-spend day — but only in the most literal sense.

I didn’t spend any money.  The Daughter, however, did — in my stead.  She drove herself to the mall to meet some friends to do some shopping in preparation of their upcoming school dance.  The Daughter needs a strapless bra.  She found one at Target for ~$11.00 (purchased on her debit card).  On her way home, I had her stop at the grocery store for a couple of Digiorno pizzas for dinner (also on her debit card).  When she gives me her receipts I’ll transfer funds from my Wamu account to hers to reimburse her for those expenses.