Grocery shopping is a must

With a friend of a friend who I now consider more of just a friend in town Monday, I didn't get to grocery shop. That means I am hurting for snackage at work, which means I spent $1.65 on a bagel this morning at the Coffee Bean.

I hate Ticketmaster. I just bought two tickets to see Phoenix and Metric at the Greek. Face value = $35 per seat, so $70 for two. The final bill ...

$95.65.

That includes $10.55 "convenience" charge per ticket. Then taxes, et al.

I love Amazon.com's mp3 store, though. I am currently downloading Radiohead's Amnesiac album. Cost ... $1.99.

Come on 7-11

I wanted to just buy a banana as a snack after my lunch, but the 7-11 down the street had one person working the register while two guys were on smoke breaks, which resulted in a line of customers snaking through the store around to the Slurpee machine. I ended up buying a $2 Cottage Double.

I couldn't resist spending ...

Even though it was only 99 cents today on "Coffee and TV" by Blur as part of the perfectsong mixCD project.

Hunger

$1 on a Snickers since I wasn't able to hit the grocery store yesterday.

30 cents on parking meter this morning.

$19.24 on groceries (sliced turkey, Ingelhoffer's sweet and hot honey mustard, Tillamook mozerella, Jiff peanut butter, bag of BBQ Ruffles). I saved $2.84 buying things on sale. I'm sorry for making fun of you, mom.

99 cents "Pandora" by Cocteau Twins. The final song needed to complete the "perfect" songs mix CD. Coming soon to a blog near this one. Well, it's the final song needed to complete the original batch of people asked, but I have one final person to bring in. However, mixing starts now.

A sad day for breakfast on the West side

Maxwell's Cafe on Washington Boulevard in Culver City has changed hands and the breakfast burrito that I grew to love—it was the first food in Los Angeles that I hearted—has changed. It's no longer offered with red and green sauce. It now comes with meat or veggie sausage and guacamole, which has touches of cilantro, inside rather than just plain avocado. :( It was still good, but it wasn't the same and I don't know if it'll remain my fave breakfast place.

For the blog ... $33.05 breakfast for two though I vowed not to spend any money Monday, good fortune (insert fake laughing here) intervened and I pal'ed around with a good friend of a good friend and made my own new friend (move to L.A. in two years Mor).

$180 on car payment that I forgot to send in June. I'm a dope. Seriously, though, the push to be more green-friendly led Chase Auto Finance to send a new quarterly statement; rather than sending a bill every month (and postage and envelopes) they send three payment stubs once every three months and its incumbent on me to remember to send them. I forgot. phuk. Should I finally switch to online bill pay?

I debated about including credit card bills, but have opted against it, only because I am accounting for July expenditures here (and those were June costs).

Like begets like?

I spent $7.84 on a new album from Irish folk-rock singer Cathi Bruns. While checking a secondary e-mail account I noticed I had a bunch of updates from one of my favorite artists, Gemma Hayes, a singer from Ireland who I've seen perform a bunch of times in Los Angeles. Gemma Hayes was recommending Cathi Bruns, who appears on the tiny label Amie Street, Inc. records.

Though this purchase went against my July mandate to change my spending habits, my urge to support an indie artist and indie label won out. Plus, I figure that someone like Gemma would be recommending something I would like. I followed Rachael Yamagata's advice to check out Stina Nordenstam and was very happy with that.

Anyway, based on the 2.5 songs I've heard so far, I have absolutely no regrets with this purchase. It's definitely got the coffeehouse singer with an acoustic guitar vibe going, but whoever said that has to be a catergorically bad thing?

Plus at $7.84 it was priced to move. To compensate though, that means leaving Regina Spektor, The Decemberists, Lily Allen, Camera Obscura, Tift Merritt and Conor Oberst all unpurchased this month.

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$5.31 at Subway for dinner, that included my drink since I wisely got only a 6-inch sweet onion chicken teriyaki.

Resistance in futile

$10 burrito and Coke at Baja Fresh. I know full well that I am seeing a movie tonight and getting dinner beforehand and a concert tomorrow. Holidays are a tough time not to spend. No eating out Monday at all or Sunday for lunch.

$25 for dinner (club sandwich and two pints of Guinness).

$15.75 for one ticket to see Up in 3-D again.

I forgot to add like $30 for gas.

A day of fiscal discipline

75 cents to a guy who said he needed a dollar to buy his monthly bus pass. I literally had only that much on me at the time. I resisted the urge to get a great Gallego's burrito or beer tonight, even though we left work a little early and I have a three-day weekend. The accounting blog has already worked its "magic" on my wallet.

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See ya Sarah Palin. I have no idea what you're thinking for your future. I hope you spend the time being a good grandmother and figuring out a way to have a better relationship with your grandchild's father. Based on the judgment you've demonstrated thus far, I don't have much hope of that.

Return of the accouting blog

We're challenging our students at L.A. Youth to track their spending for seven days, so I'm bringing back my accounting blog for July. Hopefully this will also help me from hemorraghing money, which happened the last couple months. I loathe the arrival of creditcard1 bill.

$4 for Caramel Iced Blended at Coffee Bean downstairs from work.

$1.50 on Sprite from 7-11 to settle stomach ache, which may have resulted from the Iced Blended on an empty stomach.

$865 for rent.

It's never not time for Triple T

This is the guy who starred in my favourite Super Bowl ad ever. Yeah, it's not timely per se, but next time you think of not voting remember this.