This is my first post using Ecto instead of MarsEdit.  I have to say that I am greatly impressed with the Ecto inter­face.  It even has a UI that lets me directly upload images to Word­Press instead of hav­ing to upload via the web admin inter­face.  It is cer­tainly a more com­pli­cated app, but it also feels very solid and powerful.

A list of the top 10 money drains was recently posted to Digg.  I’m proud to say that I’m only hit­ting one or two (depend­ing on how you count things.)

1. Cof­fee — I don’t usu­ally get cof­fee out.  I guess I some­times do for a social occa­sion, but it’s been months since I’ve ordered cof­fee out some­where.  Usu­ally, I grind beans at home and/or brew loose-leaf tea.
2. Cig­a­rettes — Nope.
3. Alco­hol — The arti­cle talks about two beers a day, with price vary­ing depend­ing on bar.  Often I’ll have a glass of wine or mar­tini at home (I’m try­ing to have beer only when out, but on some of these hot days, it’s dif­fi­cult to stick to that), but because I get the “on sale for $5–10″ wine, that trims the cost.  The arti­cle implies more along the lines of drink­ing out, which falls under the “social occa­sion” thing like cof­fee, but is (for me) more fre­quent.  So yes, I do spend money on alco­hol every cou­ple of week­ends.
4. Bot­tled water — As men­tioned pre­vi­ously, I carry around a Nal­gene bot­tle of water.  No store-bought bot­tled water for me.
5. Man­i­cures — Uhhhh, no.
6. Car washes — I wear the layer of dust and dirt on the car like a badge of honor!  But I do some­times wash the car at home.
7. Week­day lunches out — This my biggest expense from the list.  Yes, I do this.  No I will not change.  I bud­get for it and have it cov­ered.  I have a hard enough set­ting up the cof­fee maker the night-before or morning-of.  There’s no way I could also make a lunch with enough prepa­ra­tion and daily vari­ety to make me happy.  I do bring my own water, though.
8. Vend­ing machine snacks — The bulk food bins at Wild Oats are for my work­day snacks.  They’re not only cheap, but WAY more healthy than what comes from the vend­ing machine.
9. Inter­est rates on credit card bills — Nope.
10. Unused mem­ber­ships — Nope.  With a few recent excep­tions, I go to yoga every Tues­day and have been for at least a year.

If you want to be memeish, you can copy and paste it to your own jour­nal with your own com­ments.  Or not.

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Tagged as: ecto, finances, marsedit, software