Pay day never felt so good! I paid my mortgage and Discover bill this morning. I donated $45 to my grandsons' school fundraiser. I did a load of laundry and went to Aldi for 10 items: eggs, almond milk, stew meat, bread, spinach, croutons, turkey slices, granola, dressing, and crackers. I'll be back tomorrow to get 10 more. This trip cost me only $14 because I had a $10 credit on my credit card.

Today's meals: Breakfast - johnnycakes. Lunch - turkey sandwich w/spinach. Dinner - Vegetable beef soup & crackers.

I also went to the gym. I'm going to get back into a steady routine, a little different than the old one. I'm cutting a couple of my strength training exercises that might stress my knee, and I'm cutting out the treadmill in favor of the bicycle. I'm only doing 15 minutes on the bicycle till I build my strength back up.

Last month's recap:

Housing - $1069
Utilities - $174
Gifts/Charity - $150
Medical/Health - $97
Groceries - $93
Gas - $82
Eating Out - $77
Clothing - $70
Vet/Pet Supplies - $59
Phone - $52
Vacation/Travel - $51
Furnishings/Equipment/Decor - $45
Personal - $30
Fares/Parking - $17
Miscellaneous - $12
Laundry - $9
Household Supplies - $9
Entertainment - $8

Grand Total - $2104

I paid my assessment fee twice this month, making housing high.

Utilities were a a bit high due to air conditioning.

Gifts/Charity - Two birthdays and some pre-buying for Christmas.

Gas was unusually high. I've been in the car a lot this month.

Clothing - a big chunk of that was a pair of shoes.

Fares/Parking - higher than usual due to hospital parking.

All in all, not bad. It was actually a little under average.

Variables spending was 110%. Hope to improve on that this month.

So -- those last couple of weeks were grueling, trying not to spend anything at all. Sometimes it felt good to be stretching my frugal muscles, but mostly it felt bad. I felt poor. I felt constrained. Lesson learned -- don't blow your whole budget in the first couple of weeks.