Uh-oh...

I have NOT been good the past several days. Not at all. I went shopping on the weekend with a friend and ended up with two pairs of new pants that would fall into that big gray area of "needs that I wanted".

I have about 8 pairs of cords (I LOVE cords), but most of them don't fit me anymore, so keeping in mind of the coming cold months, I decided to find a nice pair that I could actually be comfortable in. I picked up one pair ($27) and a pair of jeans ($32), but am going to return the jeans for another pair of cords on the weekend. They're much warmer for winter and jeans are just jeans, really. I have three pairs and that's sufficient for now.

My friend, however, picked up the lunch tab, which was really nice of her. So we got to visit (rare) AND I got a free lunch out of it, so I certainly can't complain about that. After lunch, we swung by the grocery store and I picked up a few things for the animal shelter that they needed. I set aside about $80 a month for the shelter (it can buy a lot of food or supplies) and spent $73.73, which falls well into my monthly budget for this, so that's my charity dollars spent for September. I've also offered some more of my time, to help clean the cat cages on at least one weekend day, which will give my friend some well-deserved time off.

I finished watching the second season of Weeds on Sunday night and this of course prompted me to rush out on Monday and start spending blithely at the store (not Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is the Evil Empire and other people can spend their money there, but not me!). Honestly, it was almost embarrassing...

Season 2 of Ugly Betty
Season 3 of Weeds
Season 1 of The Office
Season 1 of Pushing Daisies
Final installment of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

Grand total: $209.94!!

I share them with co-workers, and I borrow on occasion too. I currently have Season 1 of Northern Exposure, Charlie's Angels (the Series) and a Canadian show called Slings & Arrows to watch.

But that still doesn't really excuse my mad purchases. I'm trying not to watch as much cable, so I suppose I'm justifying my spending that way, but still...I guess I'll have to use my "mad money" account to cover those expenditures.

I also spent $45.39 at the drug store getting a few things that I needed. Some is going to be used right away, some will be good for quite some time. I needed a spacious cosmetics case to take travelling with me, as the one I have now barely contains the half dozen things I take with me. The new one has space to spare, so I'm really pleased.

I did get confirmation that my very first investment has been received and set up with Investors Group. It's ostensibly a house fund and I've also started a $50 per month automatic debit with them into an RSP. With all the horror stories around about defaulting and bankruptcy-protection seeking insurance companies, it's a little nervewracking to be making decisions like that, but I really don't think there's anything that we can do except trust a little in "the system" and know that it will recover, it just won't be overnight. I'm still convinced that saving and investing are safe enough. Although the rates aren't staggering at this this time, I believe that a little return is still a positive return.

It's far better than no return at all!