I often won’t tally small costs. I have budgets for how much I can spend on groceries, gas, eating out, etc., but I seldom count the little things like parking meters, coffee with friends, or a movie on the weekend. My self intervention was to spend no more than $1 a day outside of necessary payments (rent and utilities) for a week. For the most part this wasn’t too difficult. I live downtown so I can walk anywhere rather than paying a meter. I ate the food in my pantry that I have had in there all quarter; canned corn, rice, pasta, beans, oatmeal, the usual, so I didn’t need to go grocery shopping that week, which wasn’t a sustainable practice because that food will eventually run out, but for the purposes of this intervention, it taught me that I don’t need to eat out when there are no more fresh veggies in the fridge. My boyfriend and I watched a movie in my living room rather than the drive-in, and I had friends over for tea at home rather than going to a coffee shop. At the end of the week, I went out to Ascendo coffee, a short 3 blocks from my house, and spent my $7 for the week on coffee and a cookie.
This intervention enabled me to be mindful of all of the ways I can reduce spending. I told my friends, “I can’t pay for that right now” a total of 5 times that week and every time I was able to offer a cost-efficient alternative. Truthfully, it was a nice wake-up call and I may start suggesting the cheap way out more often.
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