The Next Two Months

I’ve been so busy with work and, well, life over the last few months and it’s not looking like things are going to change anytime soon. The next couple of months are going to be busy ones, not just for me but also for my wallet. Here’s my schedule – with the financial details:

This weekend: It’s my last “free” weekend for awhile! I need to do a few things to prepare for a wedding I’m in though. I need to get my dress altered as well as buy the underthings and the shoes. I’m thinking this will cost me about $100. I also need to buy things for the bachelorette party – that will probably run me another $100.

8/24-26: It’s a Vegas bachelorette party for the aforementioned wedding. I’m the maid of honor so I’ve been planning this thing for awhile now. The hotel rooms are already paid for and I’m looking forward to all the girls paying me back for this. This should net me about $700 back since I paid upfront.

However, with all the stuff we’re planning on doing, I think my budget for this weekend will be about $300.

8/30-9/2: I’m off to Colardo! G and I are going to go visit some friends over there – and these are actually friend we met online so here’s hoping they don’t turn into axe murderers. Considering how well we know them, I’m not worried about this so I’m just planning on having a fun trip! The flights are already paid for ($230 for each of us) and we’re staying with them so we don’t have to pay for a hotel. My budget for this trip: $300 since I’m not sure what we’re doing yet.

9/7-9/9: This weekend has just a couple things so far. Friday will be a coworker’s birthday party which means I need to buy a gift (around $20) and Saturday is a baby shower so that’s another gift (maybe $40 for that). Then Sunday, I think we might be doing an all day hike which I want to buy water shoes for ($20) and miscellaneous snacks and stuff (another $20?). Overall, even if I spend $100 this weekend, it’s one of my cheaper ones.

9/14-9/16: I’m going back to Vegas! This time it’s for a joint bachelor/bachelorette/wedding. Might sound strange but I’m friends with both people in this couple – Saturday, we’re separating into the guys and girls so we can take the girl on a great bachelorette party and then Sunday, they’re getting married in Vegas. We decided to fly out there Friday night and then drive back with a friend on Sunday (flight cost: $77) and the girls actually get a free hotel room so the savings there is nice. However, the party + wedding gift, I’m budgeting around $200 for this.

9/21-9/23: Time for that first wedding I mentioned! It’s in Monterey which I’ve heard is a beautiful (and expensive) wedding. Hotel rooms haven’t been paid for but it was about $250/night for 2 nights – split between 4 people so about $125 for my portion. Then there will anything I need to do for the wedding – nails, hair, all of that – but I’m hoping this won’t be too excessive. Including the hotel room, I’m thinking maybe $250 for this weekend.

9/28 – 9/30: Finally a “free” weekend! This weekend will be spent celebrating my roommate’s birthday (gift + dinner: $60) and playing a game that I’m looking forward to (need to buy it for about $40). Kind of sad when I think $100 is a cheap weekend.

10/6: It’s my birthday! I want to go to a bar near my house with all my friends to celebrate but I’m thinking that I won’t have to spend money so…cheap weekend for me!

The next two weekends are actually plan-less which is pretty crazy, given everything I just talked about. I’ll be spending money though preparing for our…

10/27: Halloween party! We’ve done this twice so far (2009 and 2011) and it’s so much fun. However, we do end up spending a lot of money on this – I’m thinking this year, we’ll spend about $300 on decorations, costumes and food.

This means that over the next two months, I’ve budgeted about $1750 as extra expenses.

Even though I’m looking forward to all of these plans, that’s kind of a depressing number to think about. However, I wouldn’t change any of it. I’m excited about all the events coming up!