Zero Money to Hero Money

Week 1 - resisted the urge to splurge

The first week is over, it’s Friday again and I have to say I did pretty good with my budget.  I alotted myself $140 for the week in spending money, and $50 in gas.  The $50 was all used up, but I managed to come out $21 left over from my $140, even with the long weekend.  Here’s what I spent it on:

• 3 rounds of golf - $45
• box of golf balls - $20
• Concert tickets - $20
• Coffee & breakfasts - $20
• Beers - $15

Needless to say I’m pretty happy with myself, that was for a long weekend as well.  I also got some more work to the tune of a couple hundred dollars for this weekend, plus the event I’m shooting on Sunday.  Now I just need all those cheques to roll in.

The best news of the week came on Wednesday, we had a huge meeting at work with the entire company, things have been a little bit slow lately so the meeting was slightly worrysome.  When we sat down there were 3 new faces in the meeting room, it turns out our company got purchased by another company.  The deal isn’t finalized but it should be in a couple of weeks, however both parties were very confident that it’s a done deal.  Why is this so awesome?

1. They’re paying out retention bonuses to keep staff on board
2. The company that bought us has been voted top 5 High Tech companies to work for, for the past 3 years straight
3. They’re relocating our office, the new office is less than 1km from my new condo, and about 2.5km’s from where I’m living now.

Less than 1km from my new condo!!  I couldn’t believe this, currently I’m driving 30kms each way to get to work, when we move this summer I’ll be walking for about 5 minutes.  This is enormous to me both financially but more important emotionally.  I previously had a job where I was about this close to the office and I loved it.  I felt like no time was wasted during the day, whereas now I spend about an hour in the car everyday.

This week I’ve limited myself to $120, and will try to hang on to another $20 to put into my LOC.  Next weekend I’ve got a trip coming up, and a few more weeks away I’ll be in Cuba, so I’m trying to cut back on my spending until then even more so I don’t feel as guilty.