Staffer Attempts to Spend Only $10 for 10 Days

I’m not the best with my money.

At any check out line, the pack of gum in my pocket doesn’t stop me from buying another pack that stares at me in line. If a clever t-shirt catches the corner of my eye at Target, there’s about an 80 percent chance I’ll buy it, and about a 30 percent chance I’ll ever actually wear it out of the house.

Seriously, I suck with money.

I don’t have a job during the school year, so it’s hard to motivate myself to save up for anything during the school year. I have a job during the summer as a lifeguard and I make a decent amount of coin, about $2,000 or so per summer. Just looking at that, most would think I’d be set for the year, but I don’t see it as “enough.”

Now get this straight: I’m no “snob.” I don’t write something on a list and my parents go get it for me every Saturday afternoon or anything like that. I have to pay for everything. And recently, after much thanks to my puppy chewing up three separate retainers and consequently having to pay for them, I’ve felt like I’ve been burning through my income faster than a California Forrest fire. (Note: this is the same dog that chewed up my Bible. I’m convinced she was sent from Lucifer to ruin my life.)

So, to trim up my spendings and save up for a trip to Seattle I intend to take this spring, I set a goal for myself. I can only spend $10, in 10 days. A feat that after which telling some of my friends I was trying to do, most reacted with, “Yeah, OK good luck with that.”

I took their lack of support as even more of a challenge, and so, it began, on Nov. 10.

Not doing something for two days isn’t that difficult, thus, days 1 and 2 weren’t too strenuous. I did, however, have to give up my tradition and my friends’ tradition of “Chipotle Friday,” a day in which we celebrate us being seniors and using our open lunch privileges to stuff our faces in decadent burritos. It pained me to be at home on Friday eating a dingy sandwich, knowing I could be having burrito brilliance.

That Friday then again tested my endurance of the goal. I had planned on going to the football game that night, but a ticket was $5. I wasn’t going to be a scumbag and use my Harbinger Press Pass to sneak in (I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about it though) so I was at quite a loss, until my friend in weights class told me she couldn’t go.

“I even bought my ticket and everything already,” she said.

The penny pincher inside me rejoiced.

“Well, uh, can, uh, I have your ticket?”

“Yeah sure!”

Score. Five dollars I didn’t have to spend.

After the weekend went by, I hadn’t spent anything, a feat I haven’t achieved since probably seventh grade. But as the week wore on, I became weak. Very weak.

It was Wednesday and the basketball team was coming home from an event when we all decided to stop by Chipotle for some grub. I caved, and bought myself a burrito.

Day 6: $6.87 down the drain.

Then the next day, for lunch, I had become sick of my usual sandwiches at home, and went out to lunch, forgetting about my $10 goal. I bought a sandwich and bread.

$6.58 down the drain. Day 7: $13.45 gone. I suck.

Initially, after realizing I had gone over my limit, I was distraught with myself. How lame was I that I couldn’t even go a week without spending 10 dollars?

But through this goal, even failing it, I learned two things.

1) Don’t be afraid to indulge yourself. If you have the money and want something, go for it, unless it’s grossly expensive. Be thankful that you have the money to spend it, especially in this Holiday season.

2) I seriously do suck with money.