Single Ma Wants Me to Write About Booze. Again.

I do so hate to disappoint my friends!

In April's spending, I listed a total of $653 for dining, which includes all food bought in restaurants or take-out, as well as groceries and liquor. This is close to what I've budgeted for monthly spending for the last few years, $650. This always sounds like a lot, especially people who live outside NYC, but I've always rationalized it by noting that the culture here is just to eat out a lot, because people don't tend to have enough space to socialize at home. Compared to most of my peers, I probably dine in restaurants less frequently.

Anyway, of that $653, only $24 was sub-categorized as liquor. I was shocked to see this! The Dinner sub-category, for restaurant meals, was $336, and that probably included some wine. But other than that, I tend not to go out to bars and just drink wine at home. That wine tends to be purchased by the case, which Sweetie and I alternate doing. April was not a month where I made that purchase, but March was-- my liquor expense that month was $157. When we buy a case, it tends to come to a little over $100, as we try to find the cheaper stuff where mixed cases are discounted. Recent faves include Robertson, a South African Sauvignon Blanc, a Torrontes called La Linda, and Chateau de Castelneau Entre-Deux-Mers. If I started a separate blog called "Cheap White Wines I Drank This Week," would anyone read it?

The only other story I have to tell about booze is actually a couple of months old. Sweetie and I went out with an old friend who has become a total wine snob since moving to the West coast. We went to Henry's End, a cute little place in Brooklyn Heights that has a nice wine list. After much discussion with the waiter, a very good bottle of red wine was ordered. Then a different one was ordered when that was done. And then I think we might have had a third, I don't even remember! But what I do remember was feeling a bit shocked when I saw my share of the bill-- those bottles were way beyond my usual price range!
I don't remember what they all were, but I know one was called The Prisoner, which is listed at $55 on the Henry's End wine list. This is one of those classic situations that always pop up in etiquette columns, about how to deal with people who want you to pay for what you wouldn't have ordered if you were in control, but in this case, I have to say I didn't mind. The total I ended up paying for my share of the whole meal was something like $120, and it was an incredible meal. The wine was delicious and I was glad I tried something I never would have tried otherwise. And the friend knew us well enough to know that it wasn't a financial hardship totally out of proportion with our lifestyles.

So that's the scoop, SingleMa! You can live vicariously through my drinking while I live vicariously through your training for that 5k!

Brief Notes

Here's a few quick notes about money matters I've been thinking about. I suppose I should be using Twitter more actively if I'm going to write like this instead of managing to finish longer posts!

I used to track all my miscellaneous foreign currency in Quicken as part of my net worth. I kept a separate account for each currency, and occasionally adjusted the US dollar value to account for exchange rate fluctuations. There were times when I was traveling a lot and these accounts might have totaled over $100, but that's not the case any more, so I decided it was a stupid waste of time and just deleted those accounts! I still have the money in my jewelry box and will take it with me the next time I visit Canada, the UK, Europe, Mexico or New Zealand! I think I have a few Botswanan Pula and South African Rand too, though I never set up an account for those.

One of the best things you can do for under a dollar is to write a good, old-fashioned postcard and send it to a friend. I came across a whole shoebox full of cards from 15-20 years ago and they are gems. I'm still friends with many of the senders and we've started sending cards again, having been reminded that email and Facebook just aren't the same!

My home value just dropped by about $25,000 yesterday according to Mint.com. When I first signed up for Mint, I thought their valuation seemed pretty accurate, but now that it's around $40,000 lower than it was a few months ago, I'm not so sure! Wishful thinking may be playing a part, but I also think they must be basing this on some comp sales that aren't truly comparable.
I've also been paying close attention to rents in my neighborhood, and I think I could rent out my apartment for at least a couple hundred dollars more per month than it costs me. This has been on my mind more lately, as Sweetie and I seem to be talking more and more about the possibility of cohabitation.

Remember my friend Richard, the successful business owner who got a big bonus this year? I saw him again recently and was very pleased to hear that he put a huge chunk of his $2 million bonus towards paying off and refinancing the mortgages on his two homes. Richard seems to enjoy luxuries more and more as he gets more accustomed to the level of income he's been earning, and I've heard him say he's never been much of a saver, so it wouldn't have surprised me to hear that he'd spent money on a new car or some incredible piece of art, or a big vacation. I'm sure he's treating himself to some nice things, but it's good to know that he also has his eye on the long term picture and used his windfall to lower his monthly expenses in case he hits a rough spot in the future.

More bills set up on auto-pay: utilities and condo maintenance. I think I will now only write one paper check every 5 weeks, when I pay for my French lessons. Sometimes I even pay that with cash, so who knows how long it will take me to use up all the old checks with my previous address still on them!

Fat Finger Friday

You know, it's been a while since I got into some of the details of my daily spending. So I'll tell you exactly what I spent yesterday, a day in the life of Madame X:

Breakfast: $3,360.00 for coffee and a muffin

Lunch: $9,100.00 for a salad and a vitamin water

Dinner: $51,000.00 for dinner at a sushi place with Sweetie

Miscellaneous: $2,000,000.00 to buy a New York Times because my delivered copy was stolen.

Wow, realizing I spent this much, I am now TOTALLY FREAKED OUT!!! I have blown my budget for not just this week or this month, but for like, my whole lifetime! I'm going to have to cash in my retirement savings to pay for this! Oh Noooooooo!!!!!

April 2010 Monthly Recap

Whoo-hoo, I hit yet another all-time networth high at the end of April: $445,960. The stock market was up, I didn't spend too much, and my outstanding credit card balance was lower, so everything went in the right direction. You can see the details at NetworthIQ.

As for income and expenses, one thing to note was that I got a state tax refund of $926 this month. I did my taxes back in February but I guess I was one of the people caught up in New York State's cash crunch, in which many refunds were delayed. Here's the rest of the details by category:

Taxes Deducted	$2,070
Housing & Utilities	$2,049
Dining	$653
Gifts Given	$205
Misc	$182
Household	$127
Information & Entertainment	$98
Clothing	$90
Travel	$77
Gym & Fitness	$22
Medical	-$187
Total Outflows	$5,385
Salary (before taxes)	$8,017
Interest & Other Income	$282
Total Inflows	$8,299
Net	$2,913

I didn't include the tax refund there so total net was actually $3,839. I almost can't believe it's that high, but I guess I just didn't do much spending this month. Dining was pretty normal, gifts were things for my niece and nephew's birthdays and a few miscellaneous things I bought when they visited me. The miscellaneous category is a haircut, some conditioner, a notebook, and an iPhone case. Information & Entertainment includes internet access, a book, some iPhone apps, some music from iTunes, and Netflix and New York Times subscriptions. Medical is negative because an insurance reimbursement came through. Gym & Fitness was a new pair of swim goggles. Household included a new alarm clock, some batteries, drycleaning and an extra iPhone charger. (This iPhone is costing me a lot of money not only in terms of the device and the monthly fee, but also in various accessories as I try to figure out what sort of case is best, what apps I want to use, and how to keep the *&*%!^ battery charged while playing with it constantly!)

Anyway, that was my month in money, and it was a pretty good one. I don't think May's picture will be as pretty, but you never know! Onwards and upwards....