How to spend $1300+ in 2 weeks

(this was actually written a few weeks ago-- I now have a positive $75 to my name (and a $1000 credit card bill-- but at least I"m not in the red as of this moment)
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I currently have zero dollars to my name. Actually, scratch that. I currently have negative $9.50 to my name, and at 26 years old and 4 years removed from college, 3 years removed from grad school, that is goddamn depressing. And the sadder part is, I started with over $1300.

Now it's not the worst thing in the world, as I'll be getting my usual biweekly $900-something paycheck on Thursday night, so it's only 2 days I'm without any finances, but here's how this happened.

It started with my roommate-slash-bill collector telling me that he had neglected to give me bills to pay for the last 3 months, so the 1300 dollars in my account at the time immediately got knocked down by nearly $300 bucks.

I purchased gas twice in this time span between paychecks, so there's another $120 burned up in my tank. Also, I got gas for the girl, because I asked her to drive me to the home town, so add another $20 onto that. $140 in gas. Oh and I had to get my oil changed as well, so add another $23 onto car expenditures. Oooh, and this is a great time for my car insurance auto-deduction to take place. Minus $140.53. So the total car costs during this stretch was over $300.

Next, lets talk food and drinks. I love going to get food and sometimes a few beers with my girl--it's one of my very few vices. And drinks usually is a couple for me, a couple for her, no big expenditures. Total cost: approximately $280. Yep, I spent nearly 300 dollars in 2 weeks on food and drinks. That's 23 dollars a day. I could eat filet mignon every day and not pay as much as that. I really need to learn to budget myself when it comes to food.

Lets not forget rent, which mercifully has been cut significantly since we got a new roommate. Chalk up another $375 for that.

I "paid off" my credit card (meaning, I got a huge loan at a lower interest rate to buy it out), but not without giving them an extra $150 in interest rates before canceling it out altogether.

Take out another $60 for a gift I bought for the girl for her upcoming birthday.


So the car ($300), rent ($375), food/drinks ($280), 3 months worth of bills ($300) and my credit card payment ($150) all fell within the same time period.

Obviously I'm not gonna have to pay that $300 every month for bills, as I won't be building that up all the time. And I can stand to cut back a bit on the food/drinks a little.

And to kick me in the balls just a little more, Wachovia decides to take out $22 because I overdrew my account.

Here are the constants:

Every paycheck, at LEAST $120 will be taken out for gas.

Every paycheck, $187.50 needs to go to rent.

Every paycheck, AT LEAST $50 needs to go to bills.

Every paycheck, $106 needs to go to my car payment.

Every paycheck, $71 needs to go to my car insurance.

Every paycheck, $93 needs to go to my credit card loans.

Every paycheck, $133 needs to go to my college loans.

$950 - 120 - 187.50 - 50 - 106 - 71 - 93 - 133 = $189 left per paycheck.

I really need to cut back on the food and drinks.