It appears that life is not as bountiful as we once thought.
Rita has had a cold for the past three weeks. When you're pregnant, colds are infinitely worse because you can't take any medication at all. In a way, this helps us to appreciate the actual benefits of over-the-counter medication, because when you don't have that helping hand and your nose is in free flow mode, you kind of just want to end it all. It is also true that Rita, in her child-carrying state, is also exceptionally prone to nose bleeds, which means that she can't really be sure that if she blows her nose she won't bleed all over her favourite sweater. And on top of this, she is pregnant. It's like juggling chainsaws that are also on fire, in my opinion.
But she's been hanging on, largely thanks to her job and its flexible hours. This has enabled her to sit in bed, feel sorry for herself, and watch reality TV. Usually I'm against the Slice Network in general, but then I discovered their show on debt, Til Debt Do Us Part. This show has real mass appeal. You don't need to be the typical sort of daytime TV watcher (prisoner, mental patient, housewife/husband, Price is Right lunatic, etc.) to enjoy it. It's all about couples that have spent way WAY too much money, and are now so out-of-control that they are willing to go on TV and tell everything for the opportunity to get help and $5000. I've seen two episodes, and one of them featured a couple with a combined income of $80k who owned purebred rottweilers and ATVs. The other one featured a new mom on maternity leave that decided to redecorate (which she should also blame on Slice, in my opinion).
Thankfully, Rita is now at least a galaxy away from renovating while she's home on mat leave.
She's now been put on High Alert. Apparently there was an entire afternoon marathon of TDDUP earlier this week, many episodes of which featured couple with new children (cue: personally relevant theme). The basic theme is that people have a child, do not look at their finances, fail to see that their income is way down and their spending has gone up (by at least a long weekend in Niagara per month ($400)), and then they buy some designer dogs/boat/home theatre/time share vacation/purse. The result of all this is: a new budget!
So we did a weekly budget, because we are in a high risk category for livin' large, and because apparently my yearly budget scheme of yesteryear was difficult to manage (Hey, I have $2000 left in the entertainment budget! Let's go, casino.). Okay, in all seriousness we had a monthly budget, but that was not so much a measuring stick of costs as it was a page of stats. I'd look at it and go "hmm, we overspent on food this month by $200!" and then do nothing about it. The weekly system makes us a bit more accountable.
And, obviously, I rigged a new spreadsheet for it. It's a Google Doc, so Rita and I can share it and view it anywhere, and I added an "envelope" column that carries over the previous week's plus/minus (with conditional formatting to automatically put us "in the red", HAHAHAHAHA!), so that we can save for things. Example: I want a pair of authentic Nike retro kicks, signed by some obscure graffiti artist. My "envelope" column tells me when I have enough in the Shoe category (ie. after 10 months) to make that idiotic purchase! Pretty cool huh?
I know it's not cool. But don't point that out to me. It is very rare that I get to do some ol' fashioned spreadsheet braggin'.
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