Awhile back, maybe two years ago, I decided to create a budget. I started by tracking every cent I spent. I entered all purchases into an excel sheet into columns grouped by type (i.e. "Food In", "Food Out", "Bills", etc.). I was shocked to see how much money I was spending on breakfast (usually bagels), lunch, and coffee (namely Starbucks). I quickly decided that I needed to cut back and named Monday the official "Bagel Day" and Friday the official "Starbucks Day." I figured it would be good to start the week off with a treat – one of my fave, but indulgent (on the pocket and the tummy) breakfasts – bagels and to end the week with another treat – a yummy latte from Starbucks.
After paring down to my Monday/Friday treats, I was able to nearly wane off completely from partaking in either goodie, but now that I'm back at my office, I have to reinstate the Monday bagel day to enjoy bagels from one of my fave local bagel shops. For today's bagel day, I got a rye bagel toasted with plain cream cheese and a small mocha-java coffee with cream and sugar.
Just look at all that rye goodness!
And my mocha-java flavored coffee – sweet and creamy – just how I like it!
A healthy breakfast? Not so much. A breakfast worth indulging in once in awhile? You bet your sweet hiney.
I've been telling people for years to keep a detailed list of every penny they spend in order to find out "where it goes" … I'm sure most of them just laugh at me. But, Greg and I found out we each spent almost $200 a month on little or frivolous things…and that was a lot of years ago. That did it!! we were trying to save a good sized downpayment for our first house and were getting nowhere til then…. but, we figured if we could add that $400 a month to the pot…voila!!…we'd soon have it. We did…..
A toasted onion or raisin bagel and coffee used to be my everyday breakfast. *Sigh*, now that I am old and have slow metabolism, it's saved for special times. So my daily breakfast is either cold cereal with fruit or oatmeal. There is nothing like a toasted crunchy bagel with cream cheese and a cuppa cawfee! So New York! LOL
enjoy!