So yesterday was a no-spend day, which was great. I made lunch and dinner, and me and BF played my newly bought videogame. Needless to say, I've gotten my money's worth. I've managed to play over 10 hours since I bought it 3 days ago! Eek! Actually, it's incredibly fun and a little more intelectually stimulating than watching a movie, etc. It was definitley a good purchase. And it is keeping me busy as it is too cold for me to want to leave the house.

Which leads us into today. Usually on sundays I get together with 2 friends and study french. My one friend bailed out on thursday, and today I decided that I would rather stay in my cozy appartment rather than venture to the bus to get to the coffee shop... and I'm saving $ as well! He wasn't too put off, considering he celebrated his b-day last night and was feeling a little rough this morning. So I'll be having another no-spend day. 2 in a row??? Impossible, you say??? I thought so too, but apparently not! Yay!

At any rate, I redeemed some points from my national city card and got a $10 B&N giftcard... that'll be a portion of my gift to the best friend. He usually gets me a $20 or $30 for xmas, but I'll get him something else small as well.

Aside from all that, I'm just tugging along. I have plenty of leftovers and food to keep me filled up. I even saved money yesterday by being too lazy/cold to walk across the street to the convenience store to get sour cream. ha! It's my fave on chili, but honestly I did fine without it... hehe. I'm gonna work on some of those leftovers, though I like to cook on the weekends. Hmmm. I guess we'll see. At any rate, the first week of november is about over, and I'm still on track. Lets see if it keeps up! (I hope so!) Talk to you all later!

So I have this incredible weakness. It's called luxury. A friend of mine told me once that I'm a girl with a champagne lifestlye, kool-ade budget. hehe. Boy, was she right. I managed yesterday to head to the Giant Eagle Market District- which is the mothership of all Giant Eagles. I'm talking the produce/bread/meat section of the store is the size of a normal store, and the selection is wonderful. they have an entire cheese section and a candy store. Talk about my dream... Besides the fact that me and BF always forget that we should skip a meal before going (free samples run free in this place), we always forget that we always spend waaaaay too much here. But to continue my story...

Before we left the house, me and BF picked something out of my wonderful Jamie Oliver cookbok to make for dinner. Quesedillas. So we had to stop at the store. The Market District pulled me in, and I ended up leaving not only with the fixins for this tex mex dish, but 8oz of brie, fancy crackers (BF's incredibly wealthy grandparents have turned me on to this delicious snack... I am way too spoiled), 2 bars of lindt dark chocolate w/orange and one with pear. mmmmm.... The rest of the food I got was real grocery food, but I must say, this was a tasty snack that was well worth the extra $.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's really important to me to have that little bit of snooty luxury to offset the eating-ramen-because-I-have-no-money moments. I wasn't even planning on grocery shopping yesterday, but I'm glad I did because those quesedillas were really good! And BF liked them too! I'm loving this cooking at home bit, I'm finally cooking things that he will eat and request in the future! Speaking of which, we got another package of the zatarain's jambalaya mix as well because he liked it when I made it last week. woo! We picked another zatarain's mix. We'll see how it goes.

I knocked a couple off my list yesterday as far as xmas goes, but I didn't set foot in a store. Many of you know the pleasures of mypoints. Well, I participate as well, but national city has a very similar program going right now, and they're giving bonus points for specific stores. Target happens to be one of them. So I took care of my lil brother and either a professor or friend of mine. It's a sort of bath gel/lotion set thingy, and really it would work for either. So we'll see... 20 bonus points per dollar is good for me!

total spending yesterday included: $20 for my copy of WoW (thanks all who commented on MMO's... it made me smile), $16 on lunch, because it ended up being much pricier than I had thought, and didn't want to make BF pick up the total bill, even though he told me he'd buy me lunch. $31 on groceries, but BF is going to reimburse me for some of the food I bought. I dont mind putting the initial down on my card, I earn points that way! I calculated it out, and he owes me $12, so It'll be $20 total.

Overall, not too shabby. Today will be a no-spend day. I've got chili to make before my ground beef goes bad, and WoW to keep me busy before work. I'd have to say it was a good investment!

Well, it's my day off. I talked to BF yesterday about what he wanted to do, and we decided on going to best buy. He plays this silly game called world of warcraft... it's incredibly popular among kids my age (and younger). It's one of those games that millions of people can play together online. He spends a bit of time playing this game.

Now, I've watched him play, and it's pretty cool... kind of a pseudo fantasy game (knights, wizards, etc) and I think I'll like it. Not to mention, if we play together it could be a nice activity with relatively low cost after it's purchased (you have to purchase an account that is so much money a month to participate in the online thingy). Me and BF dont go out a whole lot during the winter, and it'll be even less this year because we dont have a car, so I've decided to buy this game and see what all the hubbub is about.

It's $20 and comes with a free trial month of the online play-time. So not too bad at all.

Last night, I bought a pizza for me and BF because he paid for my bottle of wine. But the poop-head bought a meat lovers! I thought he was getting a hawaiian pizza, so I was horribly dissapointed. He did offer to buy me lunch today because of his "changing of his mind last minute." Let's hope he holds up on that offer!

Perhaps I could shop around for some xmas gifts as well today... ooo fun! I love xmas shopping!

Aside from all that, I've got no news! Just trying to enjoy my day off... I was in great need. Later guys!

Alrighty. So today has been pretty sweet. Class. Then class again. I got a 98 on my last bio test, and that's awesome. I had lunch with my friend and that is always nice. I stopped at the bank and made a deposit, then stopped at the post office to mail off my abstentee ballot. Elections are only 5 days away! I hope it gets there in time... at any rate, I dropped online and made a payment of $100 towards my student loan (ya know, that one with the 14.25% interest!!) I've managed to lower my principle to $5407.23 from $5500 in the course of a couple months. This may not seem like much, but when you think about how much interest I pay in a month, it's a bit, for sure. I'm working on it. At any rate, that's $35 toward my $20 challenge. I budget $65 a month, any extra goes toward the challenge. Honestly, I could probably factor in more than that considering how much I'm saving on even more interest that I would be accruing if all that money was in the account. Now that my principle is down, my interest due will be less. Woo hoo! Yay for saving myself some money.

The other good new is that it's only the 2nd, and I have $211 in my checking even after the $100 I just paid to Sallie Mae. Woo hoo! That's not too shabby. I need to get some more $ into my savings account for next semester, but this is most definitley working out to my advantage, paying some of this loan off now.

I also got my bank statement in the mail. I've earned 11 cents in my savings account since I opened it a couple months ago. Whoopee? hehe. I guess I should get a little more in there... bump it up a bit. At any rate... I've got a couple days off work, which is nice. Not sure what I'm going to do tomorrow. Usually it's my day to run errands or go out to lunch or such. Not sure what BF wants to do, but I'm going to try and keep it low-budget. Perhaps make it a no-spend day? I'd really like to, it's just really hard when I hardly get out at all and my day off should be spent doing fun things! erg. Hmmm. I guess I'll have to talk it over with BF.

At any rate, I've got a fresh start with november, and it's looking up! Also, I've got those new work shoes coming in the mail this week, which is great! Very excited... hehe. Well then, I better get going. I've gotta eat some pseudo dinner before I'm off to my last class. Talk to you all later!

$20 challenge total: $245.51

So I worked a double today, and unfortunately did not get away with a no-spend day. Beyond my lack of willpower, the chefs made this not so great rice with half-cooked egg soup that I'm not too horribly fond of. I made 2 separate trips to the coffee shop in the mall. The first trip was spent trying to convince myself to get the banana instead of the glazed doughnut, but rationality obviously didn't prevail. The second trip involved a cheese wrap that was really good but too much food. So I definitely spent some food. $1 for the doughnut and $3.25 for the wrap. At any rate, tomorrow is my long day, which involves lunch with my classmate in the cafeteria. woo!

At any rate, happy first of the month, kiddos! Wish me luck on my french exam tomorrow!

Alright. So I've got class here in about an hour. I'm trying to make today a no-spend day. That'll put me at the 3 I was shooting for this month. Perhaps I'll go above and beyond! We'll see...

I double today. Grr. That means a 12 hour workday, boo. Even further in the lack of enthusiasm here is the fact that we have a 40 person party of highschool kids coming in. I guess it's a japanese class of sorts. At any rate, should be alright. I'm pretty sure it's a one plate meal, so it shouldn't be too hard to get all that out to em. Crazy day, I'm sure...

Aside from that, I just have french to study. We've got an exam tomorrow, and I hate to say it, but i'm not prepared at all. I've been incredibly unimpressed with this clas thus far, and unless my prof makes drastic changes in her teaching methods, I dont see any more progress to come :/ At any rate, the kids in my class have been meeting together outside of class on the weekends to study, so maybe she'll cut us a little slack for that. Either way, better get going. All of you have a wonderful day!