![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Going Overboard
Aug. 27th, 2006 09:50 pmI spent too much money this weekend. I've been trying to avoid doing that, and I've generally done pretty well since I moved here in January, but once in a while I go a little crazy.
To start with, on Friday I went to Walmart. I had recently (the previous Friday) bought a nice (and somewhat expensive) pair of leather hiking boots at Fred Meyers, because I'm walking at least an hour a day now every day without fail, and the shoes I had simply weren't up to the task. Really, they were starting to fall apart, but it hadn't been a real problem until I did my first hour long walk. Then it was a major problem.
However I also wanted a pair of tennis/walking/exercise shoes that weren't heavy hiking boots, to use at the exercise center here at the apartment complex or to wear when I didn't feel like strapping on heavy boots. Not wanting to shell out a lot more money for more footwear, I decided to go to Walmart. I knew I could find a pretty cheap pair there that would work, and I did, for under $18.00.
And then I sort of looked through their cheap $7.50 and $5.50 movies and picked up Dark Crystal, Time Bandits, and The Muppets Take Manhatten. Not that I needed more movies, I have a nice stack that I've bought in the last two months that I still need to watch, including several more Shakespeare films, but they were so cheap. Plus everyone I know already owns Dark Crystal, so why don't I? And Time Bandits is one of those movies I can watch over and over.
So, that was more money that I probably needed to spend on movies, although each one was pretty cheap.
On Saturday I stopped at Borders in Southcenter and picked up four manga -- volumes 1 & 2 of two different titles that I'm trying out after reading about them, Kamichama Karin and Magical x Miracle. Both are magical girl stories. One involves a girl at a magical academy (Harry Potter influence alert!) who winds up having to impersonate the head magician of the academy (who is a boy whom she greatly resembles). The other involves a magical girl whose transformation phrase is "I AM GOD!" How can you go wrong with that?
So, more money spent. And I went across the street and picked up a nice headset/mic at CompUSA too.
Today Jeff and Mike went to Frye's. I was supposed to meet them, but after getting up at 10 am I unwisely spent nearly two hours screwing around in World of Warcraft, which meant that my hour walk got off to a late start. By the time I got back, it was 1:15 pm, and they'd already called and left a message at 1 pm that they were heading down. I took a quick shower and got dressed and ate something and took off, but I didn't get there until 2:15 pm, at which point if they were still there they were probably wrapping things up, and I didn't run into them.
In the meantime, I picked up another hard drive to migrate my music files to (I have a 120 gig drive that is 104 gig full now). The new drive is a 300 gig Seagate drive that they had on sale for $89, a very good deal indeed.
Then I wandered over to the movie section. I decided to not buy any anime. So far so good. I watched part of the U2 video Rattle & Hum. Well, I don't own any music videos, but of course I like U2 -- but I don't need to spend any money on a music video do I?
But wait! It was on sale for less than $6! Okay, that's much too good to pass up. And -- what's this? A Toy Dolls video? I had no idea they had anything like that available!
So I picked up those two music videos, and then contemplated for a while whether I really wanted to pick up season 1 of Stargate SG-1. I know I'd like to pick up that series eventually, but finally I decided what I really needed wasn't Stargate, but Red Dwarf. I've never bought any of Red Dwarf on dvd.
So I located Red Dwarf seasons 1 & 2, not in the science fiction section as I'd expected, but in the television series section. And... hmmm, they have Seasons 1 & 2 of News Radio for $29.95. I've always though that was one of the funniest comedy sitcoms ever broadcast on television -- one of my all-time favorites.
So I picked that up too. Which meant that I was spending much, much more money than I needed to. I put the News Radio back at one point, but ultimately I couldn't talk myself out of it.
So I go back home, but after watching a few episodes of Red Dwarf I decide that I need to go to the grocery store. I was running low on several things, and right now I'm trying to find healthy snacks or things that are low in sugars and carbs. I decided rather than going to Fred Meyers (as I normally do) to head up to Top Foods and see what they have that's different from what I'm normally used to.
Step one: bulk nuts. I don't buy potato chips or anything of that sort anymore, but I still like to have something snacky around. I've decided that having cashews, almonds, and/or macadamia nuts around is a relatively healthy alternative, especially if I don't eat too many at one time. But even in bulk nuts can be expensive, so I spent a bit of money there.
Step two: I like fresh fruit. I looked at the small containers of neatly sliced fresh fruit -- a small container of sliced cantelope was $2.99, a container of sliced pineapple, $3.49. Sliced strawberries were $3.99. It all looked yummy, but I had a hard time justifying the price. So I went back to the produce section and picked up some grapes, a cantelope, a honeydew melon, and a container of strawberries. Then I picked up three small round rubbermain containers (for the fruit) and three large rectangular containers (for taking lunches to work in). Not that I don't have a lot of tupperware type stuff already, but most of it is old and I thought these size of containers were unlike anything else that I had.
But that was another big chunk of money.
Then -- I found quite a few different candy/chocolate things that were either sugar free or low sugar/carb, and I went a little crazy, because I wanted to try them all and see what I liked best. I don't actually buy much chocolate or candy as a rule, but now that I want to avoid sugar and carbs, it's suddenly more important to me to find stuff that tastes good and is also "safe" or healthy enough to eat. And it turned out that Top Foods had a lot of things that I hadn't found at Fred Meyers. But of course, four or five different boxes of chocolate and a few bags of sugarless hard candy added up to another big chunk of money.
So -- back home. As I watched News Radio I ate some grapes and plucked the rest of them and placed them into one of the small rubbermaid containers. Then I sliced up the strawberries and filled the other two containers. Hmm, that's a lot of strawberries. Well I won't lack for fresh fruit to eat this week when I want a snack.
Then I took on the bigger job of slicing up the cantelope. I filled two of the large rectangular containers with diced cantelope. That is a lot of cantelope. The good news is, the whole thing cost about the same as that little $2.99 container of pre-sliced cantelope, so I'm saving money. That is, if you assume that I'll eat all of this cantelope within the next week.
I didn't even touch the honeydew melon yet. I already have enough fresh fruit sitting in the fridge ready to eat to last me the week, I think.
I took the last of the three large rectangular containers and filled it with carrot and celery slices. (Guess I won't be using them for lunches after all.) Now I have some veggies ready to eat too. I have more veggies in the fridge that I need to do something with, but for now, I think I'm pretty well set in the "ready to eat veggies and fruit" department.
The good news is, I can probably avoid spending any money on food for the rest of the week. ^_^
Last thing I did was box up most of the instant rice/noodles/hamburger helper stuff that Tom had donated to me. I'm giving it to Sandee at work, who is going to donate it to some food bank thing. That freed up space in my cupboard to place my cereal and my newly created stash of "safe" candy, plus the large glass jar that I put the cashews and almonds in.
And that was my Sunday!
To start with, on Friday I went to Walmart. I had recently (the previous Friday) bought a nice (and somewhat expensive) pair of leather hiking boots at Fred Meyers, because I'm walking at least an hour a day now every day without fail, and the shoes I had simply weren't up to the task. Really, they were starting to fall apart, but it hadn't been a real problem until I did my first hour long walk. Then it was a major problem.
However I also wanted a pair of tennis/walking/exercise shoes that weren't heavy hiking boots, to use at the exercise center here at the apartment complex or to wear when I didn't feel like strapping on heavy boots. Not wanting to shell out a lot more money for more footwear, I decided to go to Walmart. I knew I could find a pretty cheap pair there that would work, and I did, for under $18.00.
And then I sort of looked through their cheap $7.50 and $5.50 movies and picked up Dark Crystal, Time Bandits, and The Muppets Take Manhatten. Not that I needed more movies, I have a nice stack that I've bought in the last two months that I still need to watch, including several more Shakespeare films, but they were so cheap. Plus everyone I know already owns Dark Crystal, so why don't I? And Time Bandits is one of those movies I can watch over and over.
So, that was more money that I probably needed to spend on movies, although each one was pretty cheap.
On Saturday I stopped at Borders in Southcenter and picked up four manga -- volumes 1 & 2 of two different titles that I'm trying out after reading about them, Kamichama Karin and Magical x Miracle. Both are magical girl stories. One involves a girl at a magical academy (Harry Potter influence alert!) who winds up having to impersonate the head magician of the academy (who is a boy whom she greatly resembles). The other involves a magical girl whose transformation phrase is "I AM GOD!" How can you go wrong with that?
So, more money spent. And I went across the street and picked up a nice headset/mic at CompUSA too.
Today Jeff and Mike went to Frye's. I was supposed to meet them, but after getting up at 10 am I unwisely spent nearly two hours screwing around in World of Warcraft, which meant that my hour walk got off to a late start. By the time I got back, it was 1:15 pm, and they'd already called and left a message at 1 pm that they were heading down. I took a quick shower and got dressed and ate something and took off, but I didn't get there until 2:15 pm, at which point if they were still there they were probably wrapping things up, and I didn't run into them.
In the meantime, I picked up another hard drive to migrate my music files to (I have a 120 gig drive that is 104 gig full now). The new drive is a 300 gig Seagate drive that they had on sale for $89, a very good deal indeed.
Then I wandered over to the movie section. I decided to not buy any anime. So far so good. I watched part of the U2 video Rattle & Hum. Well, I don't own any music videos, but of course I like U2 -- but I don't need to spend any money on a music video do I?
But wait! It was on sale for less than $6! Okay, that's much too good to pass up. And -- what's this? A Toy Dolls video? I had no idea they had anything like that available!
So I picked up those two music videos, and then contemplated for a while whether I really wanted to pick up season 1 of Stargate SG-1. I know I'd like to pick up that series eventually, but finally I decided what I really needed wasn't Stargate, but Red Dwarf. I've never bought any of Red Dwarf on dvd.
So I located Red Dwarf seasons 1 & 2, not in the science fiction section as I'd expected, but in the television series section. And... hmmm, they have Seasons 1 & 2 of News Radio for $29.95. I've always though that was one of the funniest comedy sitcoms ever broadcast on television -- one of my all-time favorites.
So I picked that up too. Which meant that I was spending much, much more money than I needed to. I put the News Radio back at one point, but ultimately I couldn't talk myself out of it.
So I go back home, but after watching a few episodes of Red Dwarf I decide that I need to go to the grocery store. I was running low on several things, and right now I'm trying to find healthy snacks or things that are low in sugars and carbs. I decided rather than going to Fred Meyers (as I normally do) to head up to Top Foods and see what they have that's different from what I'm normally used to.
Step one: bulk nuts. I don't buy potato chips or anything of that sort anymore, but I still like to have something snacky around. I've decided that having cashews, almonds, and/or macadamia nuts around is a relatively healthy alternative, especially if I don't eat too many at one time. But even in bulk nuts can be expensive, so I spent a bit of money there.
Step two: I like fresh fruit. I looked at the small containers of neatly sliced fresh fruit -- a small container of sliced cantelope was $2.99, a container of sliced pineapple, $3.49. Sliced strawberries were $3.99. It all looked yummy, but I had a hard time justifying the price. So I went back to the produce section and picked up some grapes, a cantelope, a honeydew melon, and a container of strawberries. Then I picked up three small round rubbermain containers (for the fruit) and three large rectangular containers (for taking lunches to work in). Not that I don't have a lot of tupperware type stuff already, but most of it is old and I thought these size of containers were unlike anything else that I had.
But that was another big chunk of money.
Then -- I found quite a few different candy/chocolate things that were either sugar free or low sugar/carb, and I went a little crazy, because I wanted to try them all and see what I liked best. I don't actually buy much chocolate or candy as a rule, but now that I want to avoid sugar and carbs, it's suddenly more important to me to find stuff that tastes good and is also "safe" or healthy enough to eat. And it turned out that Top Foods had a lot of things that I hadn't found at Fred Meyers. But of course, four or five different boxes of chocolate and a few bags of sugarless hard candy added up to another big chunk of money.
So -- back home. As I watched News Radio I ate some grapes and plucked the rest of them and placed them into one of the small rubbermaid containers. Then I sliced up the strawberries and filled the other two containers. Hmm, that's a lot of strawberries. Well I won't lack for fresh fruit to eat this week when I want a snack.
Then I took on the bigger job of slicing up the cantelope. I filled two of the large rectangular containers with diced cantelope. That is a lot of cantelope. The good news is, the whole thing cost about the same as that little $2.99 container of pre-sliced cantelope, so I'm saving money. That is, if you assume that I'll eat all of this cantelope within the next week.
I didn't even touch the honeydew melon yet. I already have enough fresh fruit sitting in the fridge ready to eat to last me the week, I think.
I took the last of the three large rectangular containers and filled it with carrot and celery slices. (Guess I won't be using them for lunches after all.) Now I have some veggies ready to eat too. I have more veggies in the fridge that I need to do something with, but for now, I think I'm pretty well set in the "ready to eat veggies and fruit" department.
The good news is, I can probably avoid spending any money on food for the rest of the week. ^_^
Last thing I did was box up most of the instant rice/noodles/hamburger helper stuff that Tom had donated to me. I'm giving it to Sandee at work, who is going to donate it to some food bank thing. That freed up space in my cupboard to place my cereal and my newly created stash of "safe" candy, plus the large glass jar that I put the cashews and almonds in.
And that was my Sunday!
