The dinner was at a restaurant in Midtown Houston. The dinner party was six of us and my sister and I agreed to split the bill and treat. My sister and I both had the same idea, bring a bottle of wine and cash! no credit cards. The restaurant is BYOB with a $5 cork fee so that saved us some money. The total for six of us was $278 dollars not counting tip. My sister only brought $150 in cash and I had $100. She was short on the tip so I put in $20 with her cash and pulled out the Citicard. So with her cash added and the $55 dollar tip on me, here is my total:
This is what I was talking about when I said each birthday will cost me around $200... there's just no way to avoid it. I have two more coming up that worry me. One is the spouse, the other one my mom. Between the two I think it will set us back $300 to $400. I have no idea what to get for the wife but it all depends on the pregnancy.
Impact on credit cards: I was hoping to be under $10,000 in credit card debt but it looks like it will be around $10,100 with this charge and when the interest charges go through. I did make some progress on Discover, I'll have a post on that tomorrow.
HS
14 comments:
No one says you have to go to that expensive of a restaurant. Why not have a nice dinner in, or go somewhere less expensive? $50 gift card...ok....but how about you skip the $5 b-day card? And the wine didn't need to be that expensive.
You only brought $100 cash...and your share was $150. So you underbudgeted by 50%.
Wife's gift should have nothing to do with the pregnancy. You decide what you want to spend, and then you get a gift in that range. No emotionally spending.
There are ways around things...if you choose to follow it.
It's all family, I can't show up with cheap wine lol... they are what I call yuppies lol
The birthday dinner I had no control over but we do celebrate at home a lot. My mom's birthday will be at home and dad's catering food...
For what it's worth, I do think you continue to have issues with emotional spending and this birthday stuff is the perfect example of it. That being said, I also think you make it quite clear you're not ready to deal with this issue which is fine as long as you work at other things. You can't cure everything that ails you all at once. BUT I do suggest instead of defending your big-spending choices repeatedly, you take some more time to take a look at what emotions are connected to the spending and what you're using to justify them. Let the answers come to you instead of putting up walls to deflect them. Mysti's not the only blogger to ever point out to you the silliness of the birthday extravagances, nor will she be the last. There's a very valid reason for it and when you're ready to see it and work on it, you'll be smacking your head like DUH!
I'm going to butt in uninvited and say that I was immediately struck by the large amount of birthday dinner and present spending. Look - these are your parents - in my universe, parents don't expect gifts from children - I mean, token gifts that show you are thinking of them are appreciated, but gifts that cost money when you are in debt are not needed by parents from their grown children, especially if they care about your financial situation.
And I pointed this out on another blog (which got a mixed reception) but does it make us losers that we don't go out to expensive restaurants or buy expensive wine for family dinners? We buy or make a cake and make or buy components of a special dinner to serve at home. What is so wrong with that?
Frankly, this kind of birthday celebration is just a way of living like people in a different economic stratum. That's fine if it really means that much to you that you won't change your ways, even temporarily while trying to right your financial ship, but just be prepared to keep on getting what you're getting if you keep on doing what you do.
You're using your family as an excuse to spend money. There is very good wine for a lot cheaper than $25. Splitting the cost of dinner with your sister was a good idea but the budget should have been discused before hand and another place chosen that was within both your limits. You say both you amd sister has the same idea to bring a bottle of wine and cash, yet you but the overage on the card? What would have happened if you didn't have it?
You will be in debt forever unless you figure out what is causing all of his emotional spending amd why you feel the need to keep up with your parents and in-laws.
I completely agree with everything MS said. We all have our spending issues, but at least take a minute to think clearly and realize that no one HAS to spend a lot of money on a birthday. I don't care if it's mom, dad, spouse, sister, grandma, whoever.
Admit that you CHOOSE to spend this money and that you can CHOOSE to cut back if you really really wanted to. Or you can CHOOSE to include the amounts in your budget and quit being taken by surprise and "having" to break out the credit cards.
I actually think you did well on the gifts. Given your level of income, $50 for a gift card and a $25 bottle of wine is not unreasonable. Even the amount of the meal (again, given your level of income) is not unreasonable.
IMO the big issue here is that you know these things are coming up and you make the income to afford a little splurge for birthdays, so why are you putting them on the credit card and leaving them there to collect interest? Birthdays are not surprise events - they come at the same time every year. This is something that you should be budgeting for, planning for, and NOT putting on your credit card. (I think like a lot of people you get a little bit of an ego-boost out of whipping out that CC in front of a group of people and being able to "take care" of things that way. :) )
And with that in mind, are you going to take the $100 cash you had set aside for the dinner and apply it towards your CC bill or are you going to spend that on something else (have you already?) and let that $155 sit there for a month?
You'll never get out of debt if you keep making excuses for using your card. Time to cowboy up and stop using your credit card my friend. No excuses. Sounds to me like you haven't admitted that you have a problem yet. You're staring to sound like a broken record and frankly, your blog is starting to become pointless. Why are you bothering if you're NOT GOING TO FIX THE PROBLEM???!!!
Funny, this is my horoscope today:
You need to freeze your credit cards in a block of ice and then padlock the freezer -- idle shopping is a really bad idea right now! If you can just hang on for a day or so, your financial situation should improve.
Are you trying to keep up with your parents' lifestyle? I know it is hard when we grow up a certain way to realize that even our parents had their struggles.
When my parents were married as long as I am (I can't use age...mom is 5 yrs older than dad))...we were living with my grandmother. All our stuff was in storage. We had moved from VA to NY, and my parents couldn't afford to buy a house. So our family of 4 moved in with Grandma, in her 600 square foot house.
We rarely ate out. No vacations. Not much of anything.
Just think about it for a minute...where were your parents when they were married as long as you...or were expecting their first child???
I have to say I love your blog. The entertainment factor alone is priceless. If I didn't know any better, I would think you were an executive at Capital One or American Express showing the world that it is OK to stay in debt and to rotate balances and score rewards that aren't worth the amount of money you charged on the card to earn them. I use your posts on credit cards and money management as examples of what I don't want to do.
sometimes all there is to do is just to suck it up & get through it - then get back to basics the month after.... it happens :) enjoy
In debt!
Why Amex or capital one? I hate those 2 companies lol
They were the first two I thought of....
Do you have a written budget yet? "A goal if not written down is just a dream" Write down every gift you want to buy through-out the year (birthdays, weddings, Holiday's, etc...) so you see a total amount. Birthdays aren't suprises they are part of life, but when your getting out of debt you need to limit what you spend on gifts.
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