Adventures in Debt

Yes! I managed to sell my unused window air conditioner this evening. A few weeks ago I attended a building tenant meeting and met a woman who lives a few floors above me. We started talking about our apartments, and she mentioned that she was frustrated that her current air conditioner no longer fit in her window (the building management is in the process of replacing all the windows, and her air conditioner was too big.) I jokingly mentioned that I had an air conditioner I wasn’t using, and she asked if I’d be willing to sell it. I was surprised, as I hadn’t actually thought about it, but after a few moments thought, I agreed. I wouldn’t be using it anyways, and it would free up space as well as earn me some money.

I asked for $75, more than I actually wanted for it.

She offered $65 instead.

I agreed.

She came by to pick it up tonight, and I am $65 richer. She’ll be more comfortable, and I’ll be $65 less in debt. I know it’s not a huge amount, but it’s definitely a good snowflake to have found!

In an effort to reduce my grocery bills, and also to start eating different recipes, I made the dreaded Experimental Meal tonight. Now, since I live alone this isn’t as daunting an event as in my sister’s house, where my brother-in-law will running screaming out of the house when she says those three words.

Tonight I took a look in my fridge and started searching around on AllRecipes.com for ideas. This site is my favourite one for recipes, as they’ve got such a huge database of them, plus users can also rate them, which is a bonus. There’s also a handy feature that lets you type in a few ingredients, and it will search for recipes with those ingredients in them.

On tap for tonight:

• pasta
• feta cheese
• garlic

My father used to enjoy making a variation of this meal, using olive oil, capers and hot peppers, which was not one of my favourites, as I don’t really like capers. But the idea is a sound one.

So I whipped out the frying pan, poured in a little olive oil, and tossed in a few garlic cloves. I sprinkled some dried oregano, basil and cayenne pepper. Then I cooked up the pasta and took out the garlic cloves from the pan. I dumped the pasta in the pan, and then transferred the whole lot back to the pot. I sprinkled in some feta cheese, gave it all a swish, and poured it into a bowl.

Voila!

Approximate cost for the meal:

• 50 cents for the pasta
• 10 cents of feta cheese
• pennies for the spices and garlic

Total: Less than $1! And it was tasty, tasty, tasty.

What are some of your cheap-o recipes? Leave a comment and let me know.

Tricia over at Blogging Away Debt talked about how her family was on a spending freeze a few weeks ago. I thought this was a splendid idea for me, since I seem to have accumulated another $3000 in debt through some mysterious means. Now, if I at least had a shiny new television to show for that spending, I could at least understand, but I tell you, I have not done any extra purchasing AT ALL.

“But wait a minute Jb,” you’re asking youself right now. “Didn’t you just go away on a road trip to Pittsburgh a few weeks ago?”

Yes I did, but if you’ll recall, I also used only the money I’d saved in my travel savings account, and that only left me about $25 short of the total moolah I needed to finance the trip. And remember, my only take-away from that trip was a $7.50 souvenir for my brother-in-law.

“And didn’t you also go on a trip to Vancouver too? Come on now Jb, how can you be surprised at this increase in debt?” you continue to ask.

I can only tell you that I have no idea where that money went. Honestly, I have no idea.

So I’m starting up the Budget Binder. Okay, it’s not a full-on budget binder in that it’s not tracking how much I’m spending in each category, but I’m writing down all of my expenses just to see where I’m spending all my money. This is because I have no idea where the hell all my moolah is going. I got this idea from Gail Vaz-Oxlade, who’s the financial advisor on the show Til Debt do us Part. You can check out more on the show here. Most of the people on featured on the show don’t know where they’re spending a lot of their money, specifically their cash. Because I’ve been pretty good with my expenditures on my credit card(s) and/or lines of credit, I’m thinking it must be the cash that’s messing me up somehow. My “only withdraw $200 in cash each pay and spend till it’s gone” theory must not be working. Although I’m not entirely sure that’s the issue, I figure this is a good place to start. I am going to track all the money I spend though, using expensr.com as well. The reason I like expensr is that their analysis software makes nice pie charts of all the information you enter into it. So starting July 1, I’ll be tracking all of my expenses and seeing where the money is going.

Here’s to hoping I can solve the mystery! I’ve got some expensive expenses coming up, so I’d like to be able to breathe a little easier.