Okay, so I fell off the blogging bandwagon for awhile. I could list all my excuses.....surgery....cancer....doctors.....birthdays....but I will spare you all the boring details. The good news is that I've decided to recommit and hopefully I will be more together this time around.
Last week I was among the hundreds of people whose account information was compromised at Walmart and Michaels. (Knowing me it could have been either store!) Thankfully my debit card was canceled and nothing was withdrawn from my bank account. However, several automatic bill pay accounts had to be reset because they were through my debit card.
Normally I just use my debit card and never think twice. But now that I'm waiting for my new card and pin to come I don't have one to use. So this week has been a forced experiment into paying with cash. I went to the bank on Monday and withdrew an allowance for the week. So far I have paid for everything in cash (except gas) and the results are interesting.
I have always thought of myself as a bargain shopper and good with finances. Cheapskate is a word that would describe me when it comes to money. Now that I'm carrying cash I find it harder to part with it than I did my debit card. When I went to the store today and I was looking at dress socks for my husband I kept thinking...does he REALLY need these?
I'm excited to see how much money I will have left over at the end of the week. It's sort of a personal challenge to myself.
Now that I'm paying with cash I'm getting change back. That poses the question: what to do with the change? When I was in college I would pay for the midnight breakfasts using pennies, nickels, and quarters but I'm trying to overcome the poor college student life. Besides, I'm hardly ever up at midnight even if I wanted to get breakfast. I decided to put all the change into a big jar. When my husband graduates with his third (and final) degree, I want to take our family on a big trip to celebrate. Something fun and exciting. So I better getting saving if I want that to happen! I have a feeling we'll be needing a lot of pennies.
P.S. I did get my husband the socks!
