The price of "beauty"

Oh Andy, your comment made me laugh and I was not offended at all. Thanks QL for your two cents as well!! I know it seems like an outrageous expense and when I look at it through your eyes I totally see where you are coming from! $165 for 2 hours of time spent in a chair with "Brittany" my stylist and I come out looking exactly the same but with my hair a little lighter on top and two inches shorter . . . oh, and I went for the longish side swept bangs.

Right or wrong, here's where the justification for the unnecessary expense came from:

I have decided to forgo all other "girly" things like getting manicures/pedicures (my mom asked me if I wanted to go this Saturday and I told her I couldn't because I'm being frugal . . . argh!), tanning (maybe this is a So. Cal thing, almost all my girlfriends tan . . . ), getting my eyebrows waxed and other ahem more private areas . . . Wow it's amazing how superficial this all sounds when it's written out in black and white!! Ugh! I'm embarrassed to admit that these have been things I've put my money in for a really long time. I will say that at LEAST I never went for the semi-permanent fake eyelashes which can cost a pretty penny (my girl Sarah spends about $75/month on those bad boys. Her eyes DO look amazing though . . . but I never could justify it.) I've valued these things and how they made me feel about myself. But not doing all these things or figuring out how to inexpensively do them myself is going to save me about $200/month (need to look at my receipts from February but this sounds about right).

In the end, Andy, you are right at the end of the day I have no one to impress but SB. It's amazing what we girls do to impress each OTHER though. J, a guy friend of SB's, once commented that us girls can be really catty with one another and that's true. I have tried not to give into those tendencies but I often catch myself sizing up other women and I KNOW when other women are sizing up me!

I figure that if I set aside $55/month that means every 3 months I can afford to get my hair "did". I have tried the cheaper alternatives . . . the dye in the box route, for instance . . . and they've typically turned out to be disastrous (once I ended up with brassy orange hair . . . not attractive on me believe me!). So I'm a bit gun shy about the other cheap methods. I figure my hair is one of my best features so if I had to choose any one of the above things to keep doing it would be the most important to me.

But I hear ya! I do! I shake my own head at myself . . . and Saturday morning I'm getting out the old manicure set and giving myself my own GD mani pedi. Mom even offered to pay but I told her I need to break the addiction. :-)

Okay . . . how about a quick recap on yesterday's spending?

$5.45 for a new name tag for my cat, Luna. I needed to update the info on her tag because it had my old phone number and address on it. She's an indoor/outdoor cat so it's important that she have it in case anything were to happen. I consider this an essential purchase.

$0.89 on a package of Sour Patch Kids (my FAVORITE) about 3 pm yesterday . . . needed a little sugar high to get me through the last two hours of my day. Non-essential purchase . . . next time I go to the store I'll buy something to keep in my desk - dried fruit or nuts - to beat the cravings.

$4.39 dinner at El Pollo Loco (I ordered off the dollar menu). Non-essential purchase . . . Usually I pick up dinner on the road on Wednesdays because I meet my girlfriend Gail for coffee every week right after work. I always think I can make it until I get home to have dinner but I'm always famished! Next week I'll plan on bringing a granola bar and some fruit to tide me over until I get home.

$1.89 coffee . . . . NOT a latte . . . just a regular old cup of Joe. I'm on the fence with this purchase. Obviously it was a non-essential purchase, I wasn't going to DIE if I didn't have coffee . . . but Wednesday nights with Gail are a way of celebrating hump day and something we both look forward to all week. So, in a way, I do consider this an essential. We meet at a coffee shop because we live on opposite sides of the county (me coastal, her inland) so this is a central location for both of us.

So yesterday I spent a total of $12.62 of which $7.71 was non essential.

Not bad, right?!

So right now my mind is on the next two weekends and how I'm going to have a good time but stay frugal and true to my PF goals. This Friday night I'm going to see Megan - my best-friend since 7th grade. I haven't seen much of her lately and I've bee feeling guilty that I haven't been making time for her. So I told her I'd come to her. Right after work I'm going to her house and we planned on having a few drinks at home and going in the hot tub to relax. Sounds frugal, right?! The budget I'm giving myself for the evening is $10! I'm thinking I can purchase a cheap-o bottle of wine and some healthy snacks for that. If she suggests hitting a bar or changes the plan on me I'll be honest with her about why I don't want to and I think she'll understand.

The rest of the weekend I envision time spent at the beach or park and breakfast and dinners at home. Easy peasy. And cheap. No bars this weekend.

NEXT weekend two of my girlfriends from college are coming to San Diego to visit me for the weekend - a sort of mini spring break. Saturday they are staying at a hotel in Del Mar and want me to stay with them even though I live less than 10 miles away. However, Anna owes me about $50.00 so that will cover most of my share for the night. She also suggested that instead of going out we stay in and drink wine and have a "picnic" and watch movies . . . which is great! I didn't even have to say anything about that. During the day I have volunteered to drive them around and if I know them they will want to shop and drink. Since I'm driving I can avoid the expensive drinks and stick with water. And as for the shopping, I'm going to have to just remain frugal! It'll be hard but I think it's possible. I may even divulge my personal finance mission to them as I know that both will most likely be VERY supportive. I haven't done a budget yet but I'm thinking $40 might be good enough . . . doesn't sound like a lot but I think it's possible.

One last thing:

I've updated the amounts on my right side bar. As you can see my credit card debt is now below $1K! Whoohoo!

Store Credit Card #1: Has a balance of $45.40 (I'm so close!!!)
Store Credit Card #2: Has a balance of $177.76
Visa: Has a balance of $466.08
Mastercard: has a balance of $282.73

Last month my total credit card debt was $1,189.13 so that's a total of $217.16 down . . . whoohoo!