A System for Everything
November 6, 2007 by John in Consumer, Money, Of a Personal Nature, Pets
A couple of boxes arrived in the mail yesterday from Dillard’s. The local store’s selection in the big and tall section has been dwindling for years now, so I just end up ordering my clothes online. I still order from them because I know which sizes of their house brands fit. I hate ordering clothes online; it’s hit or miss on the quality and fit. Even printed t-shirt sizes and quality vary widely.
The reason I mention this is, much like budgeting, I’m establishing systems and routines for as many things in my life as I can in order to free up brain cycles (just because I’m lazy, not because I need those cycles for something else - I’m no Seth Brundle). These are things that don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things; things that don’t require a unique expression of creativity. I just don’t want to be bothered. Like work clothes. Last Spring I ordered four pairs of black dockers (the rip-off house brand) from Dillard’s. They last about six months. Last Spring I also bought four shirts for work, but in-store. Three of them are the exact same style but different colors. I don’t care. They also last about six months, although a couple are not completely worn out. But this time I ordered four work shirts at the same time as the pants. Total tab? $300. Sure I have to do laundry every weekend, but I don’t have to keep a bunch of clothes around the house. Simplify. I don’t know how you gals do it. Later, if I decide to go all monkey suit like Scheetz, I can bump up the budget and get four pairs of slacks and dress shirts. I’d have to budget for new ties, though.
This also helps with budgeting. Recently I started using an envelope system for a few things, clothing, pet expenses and car maintenance (the Golf). So each payday $60 goes into the clothing envelope to cover a few other things. I probably need to bump that up to buy a pair of shoe, work or tennis shoes, a couple times a year.
One of the other small things I do to save time and thought is I buy 28 cans of Science Diet dog food every payday. I’ve considered buying 56 cans every other payday to save a trip to the pet store, but I guess I don’t mind going to the pet store that often and I don’t have to store all those cans. The bags of dry dog food are a lot harder to budget for. The dogs go through a 20 lb. bag every 3 weeks or so. So roughly every other payday I buy a bag. I’m spending about $100 a month on dog food.
I’ve posted about my budgeting spreadsheet before, but for 2008, in an attempt to track some of my cost of living expenditures without resorting to Quicken or Money, I’m breaking out things like pet expenses, clothing, Netflix, etc. and tracking them separately instead of allocating it all to a big pool of money. Previously I just tracked the big ticket items like the mortgage, school loan, etc. I know my biggest cash leak is food — I eat ou way too much and spend way too much on mochas. But this is just my attempt to get my head wrapped around it.
So, to all my co-workers, if you thought I was wearing the same pair of pants every day, I am. But I’m not.
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