5 on a Friday: Cheapskate Edition

 1. It has been awhile since I was the parent of a toddler, and in the intervening years, I forgot how much I love the library. During the pandemic, we had to pick up our books curbside. Then libraries opened with masks and community spaces roped off and everyone did their business quickly, grabbing books and running out the door  without lingering-- and libraries are built for lingering. Slowly, though, germy community toys took their place of honor, and snotty pre-schoolers started to fill the worn out carpets again. When Dorothy was in 3K and 4K, she and I went to story time every single week, but Minnie and I have only recently become regular patrons. On Friday last week, I didn't want to spend money on an activity (thank you, my Q1 tracking spending goal), so we went to a new-to-her library, and she loved playing with the grimy toys for over an hour while I ordered new reading glasses, sent 2 work emails, and made a grocery list. SO MUCH WINNING.

2. Minnie has quite the budding sense of style. She picked this whole ensemble out herself, down to the inexplicable tutu and the Christmas leggings, plus the requested brown bow.

3. We are heading into a long weekend next week with NO PLANS to travel, and I really wish we were traveling. I have SUCH travel envy, and I hope that will be enough to make me GET ON A DAMN AIRPLANE. Jealousy is usually a great motivator for me, so we’ll see.

3. I have these tight jeans that are even tighter than they were last time I wore them, and I think I need to wear them once a week because they are good, like, sentinel jeans. If they fit, then all is well with my eating habits. But if they don’t? I need to figure out where to cut back or how to make indulgences even healthier. I am all about intuitive eating, and I understand all the perils of believing that the only healthy body is a thin body, blah blah blah. But also, I don’t live in a vacuum, so I want to be a certain size because to me a certain size is more attractive, thanks hegemony. I think this needs its whole post, actually— being straight sized and also trying to be an intuitive eater and not make your kids nuts about their bodies and UGH.

4. I have a full-on digital NYT subscription through my campus library, and I had no idea I did until THREE DAYS AGO when I was looking for a specific article to share with my TAs and wanted to get it from the library so I could send a PDF and not subject anyone to a paywall. I searched the library databases for “New York times” because I thought I could get it through ProQuest or LexisNexis (which I could), but a plain old NYT database showed up in my search, and when I clicked it, it was like hey you, you have a digital NYT substitution through your university— why dion’t you sign up?  And I was like WHY DON’T I? So now I have all the archives, the full paper every day, the phone app— ALL OF IT. How fabulous, huh? I have already updated discussion boards for this semester and sent things to my teaching team. And it’s only January!!

5. Tracking my spending is really eye-opening, and it is something I haven’t done since we were saving money for a house down payment and did the Dave Ramsey cash envelopes (we saved such a ridiculous amount of money SO FAST with this method but also hated it). I am trying to not edit my spending too much just because I am tracking, but as you know, the act of writing it down makes me more careful. In 2 weeks, I have spent only $15 on entertainment (TLG coffee date with Minnie after class and the only coffee out I have gotten all year—yay!). The bulk of my spending has been on food, even though Ben has also gotten food from Costco and Whole Foods, but I didn’t track that— only mine. My impulse buys have been house related (a veggie storage tray for the fridge, extra twin blankets to make sheet changing even easier (also we are missing 2 blankets and ew where did they go?)), and we have had some kid expenses pop up (USA swim registration, AP test fees) that are right around $100 each and seem like one-offs but I bet are not, and now I am so excited to see what next week’s random fee will be. ALSO, I just re-read that paragraph and holy cats those are the MOST DEPRESSING impulse buys in the entire universe. I have a separate category for makeup and skin care, and I am interested to monitor this one because I get my day and night face washes and creams from Amazon Subscribe and Save and get thickening shampoo and conditioner delivered monthly, too, which I am actually not tracking. I decided that I would just chart my own day-to-day spending, not subscriptions or things on auto-pay. I will say that looking at my happy little rainbow spreadsheet makes me want to not shop and instead reuse and repurpose things I already have, so this is environmentally a huge win if nothing else comes of it **shrug**.