So it begins. Today is the first day of my new budget. Everything unpleasant always seems to start on Mondays... I will attempt to live on $50 a week for the summer. That will even include events like movies and surprise birthday parties from now on. Yup, $50 a week. It shouldn't actually be all that hard given the fact that I live in my parents' basement and the pantry is usually pretty well stocked, thus minimizing the need to spend money on food at work. Provided I create lunches ahead of time. Really, who wants to make something nutritious at 7:00 a.m. when they can easily buy kobe beef? I've decided to leave the costs of my cell phone and Flames playoff tickets out of the budget for now. But beer at the game is in, as are all other entertainment options. I've even made myself a nifty little budget spreadsheet with formulas and everything. It's very exciting. Ok, it's not exciting at all, but good on me for actually figuring out how to do it (it's been a number of years since I last tried to do anything in a spreadsheet). So if I manage to spend less than $50 in any week, that excess will "carry over" to the weeks when I plan to be away from Calgary this summer, hopefully allowing me to maintain my budget even while I'm on vacation. All this is in an attempt (another in a string of unsuccessful runs) to pay off some of my debt. So here goes. As long as certain friends stop guilting me about going home instead of going out, and certain people stop calling me boring, it should all work out this time.