A long list for October and November.

I somehow missed posting after October, but I’m back.

Things have been less than ideal lately. My partner had a death in his family this month, so a lot of things got derailed. I have been very overextended energy-wise, so I’ve been spending a lot more to compensate. Oh, well. Guilt isn’t going to improve the situation; only effort can do that.

Without further ado, in October and November I:

• Downloaded a free Kindle First preview novel.
• Bought a fantastic shower head for only $16. I read some random article on the best things you can do to upgrade a rental and it mentioned that this particular shower head was excellent, so I thought — at that price — that I would try it. One of the (many) irksome features of our flat was how awful the shower was. A combination of the cheapest and most terrible shower head imaginable plus low water pressure made for showers like standing under a lukewarm garden hose. I did try to fix the old shower head by soaking it in vinegar and removing the silt from it, but that only made it a slightly more vigorous garden hose experience. Since we renewed our lease again*, I decided to do as many inexpensive things as I can to make it a less negative place to live. This was my first such experiment, and it was a real winner! Everything positive the article said was true! I’m kind of in love with this shower head. It even makes rinsing my long, fine hair easier! (*I know I have probably complained a lot about this apartment on here, so you must be wondering why on Earth we renewed the lease on this terrible place. Well, mostly the price. They didn’t raise our rent at all with this renewal — and average apartment rent in Houston went up 16% last year. Yeah, in a single year. We didn’t want to pay hundreds of dollars more a month — or endure the trauma of moving again. So we’re sticking it out for a while.)
• In that same vein, I spent $6 on new drip pans and $8 on burner covers for the electric stove. It’s definitely less unattractive now. Marginal improvements are still improvements, even in this apartment.
• Convinced apartment management to finally replace our dishwasher! It’s not top of the line, but it’s brand new and completely functional — and will make my life much, much easier. We made such strides in making our apartment a better place in October.
• Had my annual Halloween tea. I had plenty of decorations (since we do this every year), so I only bought a bag of fake spider webs and some Halloween themed paper plates and napkins on sale. We did buy some special food and some purple tulips for the table, but we managed to have a heck of a “do” for around $50.
• Bought four pairs of leggings from Old Navy for $5 each. Yes, I know that this is fast fashion and therefore a questionable (and arguably unethical) purchase — and yes, I’m fully capable of making leggings myself — but I could barely get fabric for a single pair of leggings for the $20 total I spent on this. And that’s without counting my time or energy! I wore out several pairs of leggings recently, so these were also replacement purchases.
• Redeemed a $5 reward on my Walgreens loyalty card for my OTC allergy medicine. I usually purchase it at Costco, but I had suddenly run out and this made the price comparable.
• Ordered holiday gifts during a 40% off sale, long before Black Friday. I have to have my shopping finished at least a week early this year because of the play I’m doing, and although I’m waiting on a few packages in the mail, I am very nearly done already.
• Bought a new-to-me, very gently used wool coat on eBay for $35 (including shipping). I don’t usually talk about this, but even though I stopped dieting years ago, my weight has never completely stabilized. I swing up and down within the same 20 pounds (most of the time), but even that is a full dress size. My favorite winter coat was custom made during a lengthy bout of stomach illness, during which I was about 10 pounds smaller than my normal low weight point. I’m currently about 5 pounds larger than my normal high point, and although most coats are loose-fitting enough to work with a 20-pound difference, my old coat is too fitted to work with a 35-pound difference. “But Sarah,” you may be saying, “You’re a ‘great big fat person,’ as Buffalo Bill so memorably said in ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ — why don’t you just starve yourself until that coat fits again?” Well, I have a couple of problems with that. First of all, diets don’t work long-term (it’s true), and my body will likely return to its 20-pound wide comfort zone on its own soon enough. I just can’t say when. Secondly, my fat ass is cold right now. I can’t wait the eight or twelve weeks it would take to starve myself into my old coat, even if I were willing to do so. (Sorry not sorry for the fat acceptance rant.)
• Had a free drink on my Starbucks card.
• Spent an afternoon at the fine arts museum strolling through their regular collection. We pay for an annual membership, but sometimes forget that one of our benefits is free admission to all of the various regular collections. The membership almost always pays for itself in reduced price or free admissions to special exhibits, so free general admission is just a bonus.
• Redeemed credit card points on two credit cards to help pay for Christmas shopping. We got back $150.00 on one card and $175.00 on the other, and we’re not likely to spend much more than that since our gift list is relatively short — and we’re relatively cheap. This really is “free money” because we pay all of our cards off in full each month.
• Read 22 ebooks and 6 physical books from the library between the two months, and managed to squeeze in 5 more Kindle Unlimited titles before my cancellation in October. I spent a ghastly combined $85.03 on other books, though, so I have nothing to brag about. I simply have been unable to stick to a reasonable book budget.
• Checked out a few DVDs from the library, too. I sometimes forget to add this to the list, but free beats even Redbox prices every time.
• My partner got two free boxes of granola bars from my step-dad because they fell off the back of a truck. I mean that in a literal sense, not the mafia sense! He’s a truck driver and an entire case was damaged and written off. The store told him to keep it. My step-dad kept some, gave some to friends and family, and sent the rest to the food bank. It was only the outer box that was damaged, not the bars themselves.
• Was delighted to be informed that Instacart has dropped their service fees for Express members. I expect that means they’ll be raising their Express membership price next year, but I’ll analyze that when I see the new numbers (if that really happens). I’m going to enjoy the reduced fee while it lasts!
• Got a free hot chocolate mix and a free jar of black pepper from Penzeys. Both will be holiday gifts. I really love Penzeys. Not only are their herbs and spices delicious, but they’re generous with free items and discounts. And they’re even woke! They’ve become so vocal about the political situation in the US that right-wingers have called for a boycott against them. Usually you hear about boycotts against companies that are doing truly terrible things, but apparently calling for unity and caring among cooks is reason enough for some people.
• Despite everything, I did manage to cook more of our meals at home than we generally do. This is better for our bottom line — and our health — even when using some pre-packaged ingredients. Success! On at least one thing.

I have my show coming up in December, so I expect that my energy deficit will continue to drive my spending through the roof. I guess we’ll see!