Souper Bowl Weekend

I admit I'm making up the rules as I go along but since it's my challenge and I'm hoping no one will get hurt in the process I feel it's okay. I did spend money this weekend but I'm going to be selective in what I count. This might be construed as cheating but I have my reasons.

As previously mentioned, we are car-less by choice (and to be honest, for financial reasons, too) and Saturday I had to give my mate, and a bunch of his gear, a lift to a work site and pick him up again later in the day. This meant I needed to book an Autoshare which amounted to almost $40 but since it will be reimbursed as a work expense I'm not counting it.


Because I was going to be making 2 trips over the course of the day, I had initially booked the car for the whole day and figured I'd use it for errands and carting the kids around in between. In light of my new resolution and recognizing it as an unnecessary indulgence, I changed the booking to 2 separate bookings for drop-off and pick-up, a savings of ~$50 even though it wouldn't have been at my expense anyway.

Like most Saturdays, the remainder of my day consisted of accompanying my kids to their activities but we did so by foot and didn't incur any unforeseen costs along the way. I did stop for a few groceries on the way home and spent a total of $20. Like I said, the food thing will be the hardest part. The only extravagant purchase in that was a container of ice cream which, of course, is not a necessity but I had bought the kids a tub of ice cream earlier in the week (before the challenge) for $8 at the corner store. Then, as if learning a lesson, the ice cream was freezer burnt so I returned it and got my money back. So...Saturday I was at the grocery store and the same premium brand ice cream was on sale for $3.99 (half-price) and I bought the kids their ice cream.

Sunday was "Souper Bowl Sunday" for us. A day of football for many but for us the day a restaurant, La Papillon decided to cook up 2000 litres of French Onion Soup as a fundraiser for our local farmers' market. It was an all-you-can-eat meal complete with coffee and dessert and was pay-what-you-can. I gave more than my allotted $12 but I have decided I will not count charitable giving in my $12 a day. My reasoning is that if I can give, I would still like to and I consider that spending above and beyond the $12 that the very poor would be spending. If that makes any sense.

So, in effect I actually didn't spend ANY money today and had a great day. Woo hoo!

Saturday Spent: $20.00
Sunday Spent: $0