mission: failed

Now, to answer the question on everyone's minds - did $9.20 last me for the weekend? My answer - definitely not. The title of this post probably blew the surprise a little tiny bit, not that there would have been much suspense to begin with. The money I had would have lasted if I was to spend the weekend at home watching DVDs. But I didn't do that. Instead I spent most of it away from home, doing stuff that costed money. Though I did try my best at first. I was shopping on Saturday arvo and got hungry and thirsty. It was a very hot day. Sure, there was air con in the shopping centre and air con in my car, but it was a hot walk from the carpark, or so it felt. Anyway, rather than blowing pretty much all of the little cash I had, I decided to shop at Woolies instead. My meal and drink combo of a box of nacho cheese shapes and a bottle of passionfruit-flavoured water cost me $3 in total (both were on special, shapes were very cheap, $3.02 in total so I saved another 2 cents in rounding hehe). So I was down to $6.20, but it could have been worse. However, it went downhill from there. Over the rest of the weekend, I filled up on fuel, bought lots of food and drink, about three meals worth with desserts too (by this point I had borrowed quite a bit of cash and was pretty much buying without a care in the world for how much I was spending... or for my health) as well as other various random purchases and expenses. Moral of the story - stay at home if you only have $9.20, or at least hang around at Woolies. Also, the beach may technically be free to access, but a day at the beach can cost a lot more money than you think, especially if its a hot day - cold drinks and big ice creams suddenly appear to be even more appealing than usual.

Anyway, after the previous post I actually remembered that I had a backup ATM card to access my savings in the case that I lost my wallet and/or my credit card (I only got it because I copped a lecture about it from the lady at the bank about a year ago). So here I was thinking that if my $9.20 experiment failed, I would easily have something to fall back on. Unfortunately, I tried to get money out with it and the ATM wouldn't let me. I couldn't figure it out, but at least it didn't gobble up this card too. Anyway, I found out today that it was because I had never activated this card. Grrr. Oh well, anyway its done, and I have access to my savings account and can pay back my debt. Though after making a phone call today, it sounds like I won't be getting a new credit card for another week and a half. So its back to spending my own money. I'm still trying to get used to saying "savings" and having to punch in my pin and ok, rather than "credit" and signing a receipt. I got it mixed up at lunch today, when I bought Nacho Libre and another copy of Napoleon Dynamite (it has a different cover and more features... damn I'm a sucker for special editions). Oh well, I'll sure I'll get used to it, especially spending at the rate that I do...