I mentioned, right, that I’m not good at being frugal? I think I noted it somewhere around here. This past week I went back to my pre-January 2012 habit of buying lunch (even if it’s from the grocery store, Ralph’s, downstairs from work.) and spent $18. I know it’s not a ton, but if you recall, $20 a week on lunch = $80 a month NOT in my savings account.
Also, I hadn’t seen my friend Lorraine in forever and one of our favorite things to do is hit the Korean Spa. Women in black bras and panties scrub the top layer of your skin clear off for $30. (And maybe that sounds “hot,” the women in panties doing a scrub…let me assure you–it’s not. It’s a bit like being at a nudist camp…nudists are never the people you would “want” to see naked. Just sayin’.) It’s actually a pretty good deal, breaking down to a dollar a minute for a spa treatment, but still…there’s $30 my daughter won’t have for college. (But her mother will have the smoothest skin while she fills out those financial aide forms!)
What I DID do this week, was shop at the 99Cent Only store in the heart of crappy Van Nuys! There, I purchased toilet paper (4 rolls), a large Hansen’s cherry vanilla soda, deoderant (that sucks because it leaves my armpits wet–isn’t deoderant supposed to DRY your pits?!), a dish sponge, a can of green beans (Addie is curently REALLY into green beans), lentils (also into lentils), two toothbrushes, Organic lettuce (ORGANIC!), a bag of noodles and some other stuff I can’t recall right now, all the while only spending $21! I walked out the door with four bags of stuff. Four bags! I had to fight through a crowd of angry homeless people to do it, but hey…nothing like saving a bunch of money on incidental crap!! This is what it looks like, only with lots of people asking for change/waiting for the bus outside. 
I’m still rocking the Starbucks tumbler and haven’t spent a dime on coffee and that feels good. So I’m going to put five bucks in the savings account. It could probably be more, but there was the Korean Spa incident.
Going to go overcook the 99 Cent Store noodles and flog myself with them.
Good day.
Saving it All 