Remember my budget-busting bravado?

Earlier this month, I posted -- and boasted -- about keeping to a $600/month spending diet. This excluded all of my fixed costs such as mortgage, insurance and cell phone, but it did include all my food, transportation and frivolous purchases (of which I purchase many).

Well, I have a week to go on this. The last day of the count-down is March 6th. As of today, I'm in the red. By about $65 -- which I will make up in the next few days to finish, hopefully, in the black.

Why the red?

Ebay auctions on things I collect. A 50th birthday celebration for some friends. Hosting the book club and promising to make Japanese food (the ingredients run more, even though I had many of them on hand). And a Christmas present for my dad (yes, that would be Christmas 2007). You might notice that there is no Valentine's Day expenditure in there. Yes, I am a horrible girlfriend. SM spend $150 for our Valentine's Day dinner, even though he is doing this little $600/month thing too. He doesn't spend anything on Ebay or himself, though, so I have every confidence that he'll end up in the black. Yes, I got him nothing. I'm horrible. Oops.

However, notice that other than the Ebay excursions, I have not spent any $$ on myself. I have limited my eating out, and I engaged in no retail therapy. So even though I may finish in the red (although I still maintain that I'll stay under budget in the end), I really took it easy on the plastic this month. My credit card bills are teeny compared to normal. Yay!

I'll report out my final number on March 7th, after this little experiment is over. Then I'll start it again for March.