Thrifty is hard sometimes.

It's recently come to my attention that I might have lived a little too large for my meager little paycheck. (Oh thank you, nearly forgotten car payment, for snapping me back to reality.)

Most of my money spent was on food and clothing. Food being the "dining out" variety.

Well, that sucks... a lot. So I'm being forced to, somehow, live on the next two weeks with a spendable budget of less than $100. No restaurants, I guess. Hello to mooching leftovers and eating mayo+tuna sandwiches.

That said, I've realized that, outside of food, clothing purchases have come to make up a large portion of my spending. Not really a good thing. Since I already have a ton of clothes, I might put myself on a clothing freeze. I might get a chance this weekend to re-evaluate my closet and it's residents. I need to do this. I'm allowing myself to enter Gap between the 1st and 4th of October for a sale... but that's it. I need to cut back dramatically. Here is my plan:

1 - Reworking current belongings to make them work in my current wardrobe. Hopefully I can get creative with a few pieces and make something "new." We'll see how that goes.

2 - I'm sure I'll find things that I've forgotten I own. Free shopping is always a good thing.

3 - Consignments. I need to start shopping at second hand stores more often. I use to do this semi-regularly... but lately I've been all about pretty new things rather than new-to-me things -- New-to-me is almost always as good.

4 - Dine out less. (Or less expensively.) This weekend, I'm seeing "The Informant!" with my momma. We were going to eat out somewhere (Olive Garden would have been awesome) but now we're eating popcorn because I found a handy little coupon. We'll kill two birds with one stone this way. Of course, she wants to swing by Starbucks and be a pricey date, but that's no big thing because I still have a giftcard. Haha!

5 - Mooch a little off others. Yes, I stole left overs from my Meemaw last night. I blame the fact that Stephanie Plum (if you are female, you need to read Janet Evanovich's novels, ok?) gets leftovers from her mother all the time. Since I still live with my mother (and she rarely cooks), my Meemaw is next in line.

So... now I just have to make it to next Friday. Payday, you cannot come fast enough. I already have you partially spent.