One of my coworkers -- I can scarcely get through a day without there being something that you guys would enjoy.
Since my last post here, she has gotten engaged, so that's fun. She talked for a few weeks about getting married in a local park, something simple and inexpensive. Chafed at the idea that if she wanted to have a specific area of the park reserved on a specific day, she'd have to pay the parks department a reservation fee of around $250. Then she toured a venue two hours away one weekend, and came back talking about how it was not a good deal at all. $2,500 for the day and it's a long drive and they don't even handle the food, it's just a big field. Compared to that, it seemed like such a better deal to hold the wedding and reception at this local restaurant/hotel, where it would only cost $4,000 including an appetizer bar (but not including the alcohol, of which there will surely be highly marked-up rivers). So she booked that one.
The dress, kind of the same thing. Lots of talk about how she wanted something simple and inexpensive. Then she went dress shopping at bridal stores -- the kind that don't stock a single simple or inexpensive item. She tried on a dress that she thought was ugly on her and it cost $2,000, so compared to that, the one that she liked better was a BARGAIN at $1,400 and she just had to buy it on the spot.
And then there was this week:
Monday, she was whining that she had gone overboard on both Friday and Saturday, spending well over $200 in bars over the course of the weekend, and now she was so broke she had only $270 left (after bills) to get through the rest of the month. We have a similar conversation every month, but usually not until at least the 12th. This was the 7th.
Tuesday, she whined that she was "forced" to go out to happy hour the night before because a friend needed to talk, and they stayed out late enough that it came dinner time and then she "had" to eat dinner there at the bar as well, and she's trying to cut back on that sort of thing but it's so HARD.
Wednesday, not much money talk but she did go out to buy one of her usual $10 lunches and make horrified faces at my homemade burrito.
Thursday (today), she took delivery of a food processor that she ordered online so that she could try out a trendy new recipe, but not this weekend because she's going camping with her fiance, and her big plan tonight was a shopping trip to stock up on all the yummy processed foods they might want to eat as camping treats.
I'm sitting there mentally counting down from $270... waiting for the "well, I'm in the hole for the month now" conversation that we usually have around the 20th to start...