8:20am – Get into my car and notice that my gas light is on. How long has it been on? Only God knows. Immediately decide that this is a problem for later me to deal with.
8:35am – Stop on my way to work to buy an iced latte that I can hardly justify because our office provides coffee. But it’s the closest thing Portland has to Blue Bottle and so we all have to make our scarifies, I guess. My favorite part about spending $5.75 on an iced latte is that it only takes me 30 seconds to drink it and immediately wish that I had another one. Sure, it could have been $4.75, but I tipped a full dollar in my ongoing efforts to get the hot barista to remember me. This strategy has yet to pan out.
8:37am – While waiting for my latte, I openly gawk at a woman at a nearby table who has managed to pull off the heavy bang/oversized overall/struggling yet chic artist look that I was convinced, until this moment, only worked on people like Alexa Chung and Rachel McAdams. I wonder if she also tipped the barista a dollar.
10:00am – Walk to the cafe by my office because it’s such a nice day and why not get some fresh air! Definitely no ulterior motives here! Just accompanying a friend and basking in that sweet Oregon sunshine!
10:05am – Order a side of bacon, because I’m a growing 26-year-old girl and if
keto taught me anything, it’s that we should be celebrating this perfect piece of meat.
12:30pm – Ventured to New Seasons to stock up on cheese for my weekly Riverdale viewing party. If you don’t spend your Wednesday nights devouring entire wedges of jalapeño gouda and mocking Archie Andrews, I honestly don’t know what to tell you other than to get your shit together.
While there, I realize that I have yet to drink a single liquid today that isn’t coffee, something that is definitely not helping eradicate the cold that has slowly taken over my body in the last 24 hours. In the name of self-care, I spend $4 on 11 oz. of hand squeeze orange juice and another $2.50 on a giant-ass bottle of Fiji water. I recognize that spitting in the face of sustainability is a bold choice to make in Portland, but I don’t have a dishwasher and don’t trust my own paltry cleaning skills to remove whatever bacteria may have accumulated in the four reusable bottles I actually own after months of use/baking in the backseat of my car.
I didn’t buy lunch because Tuesday night I decided to meal prep for the week to make myself feel better about a solid week straight of takeout. This didn’t stop me from standing in front of the hot bar mac and cheese and just sighing for five straight minutes. But, in the spirit of full disclosure, if we were talking a typical day I’d spend five minutes hemming and hawing about saving money and then drop $9 on a boxed salad, likely rife with e. Coli.
2:30pm – Consider eating the “afternoon snack” I packed this morning. It’s a healthy and dissatisfying combo of carrot sticks and white bean basil hummus, something that sounded enjoyable while I was furiously grocery shopping the night before but now just makes me want to die.
2:40pm – Eat it anyway. Even Cooper is unimpressed.
4:30pm – I head to the store to buy some stupid expensive sunscreen for my stupid pale skin because the stupid lovely sun came out in Portland for the first time this stupid year. God forbid I go to an outdoor happy hour before slathering myself in SPF60 and praying that whatever well alcohol I’ve selected for myself won’t interact with the sun and result in a cute rash across my chest.
4:45pm – It is now time for later me to deal with the fact that my car is running on literal fumes. I stop at the gas station near my office where the taxis fill up, because it’s cheaper and still pull the “just $10 regular” move because I have never heard of foresight. Sounds like a problem for two-days-from-now me.
6:30pm – Spend the entire drive to happy hour convincing myself to just get whatever cheap cider they have on draft and then don’t even hesitate before ordering the $10 cocktail special because it sounds festive and tropical. I also spring for an order of chips and salsa for the table because I’m the backbone of my friend group and also plan on eating them almost entirely by myself.
7:20pm – Head to my friend’s house for our Riverdale viewing party, where I eat no less than five different kinds of cheese. It’s easier to listen to Veronica say “Daddy” 150 times per episode when you’re uncomfortably full of brie and jalapeño gouda.
8:15pm – This episode is dark. Like, are we really all going to pretend we cared that much about Midge? And are we going to have to spend the rest of this season dealing with the return of tortured Archie? Because there isn’t enough cheese in all of New Seasons to make that okay.
9:30pm – Have to physically restrain myself from getting ice cream on the way home. I don’t know when I became this monster that eats entire meals consisting solely of dairy, but I blame Whole30. There’s no logic there, I just like to blame them for anything that goes wrong in my life.
Total Spending for One Weekday: Not counting the sunscreen but including the salad I typically would have bought, we’re looking at $49.42. I’ve had worse days, but it’s still not great.
Total Spending for One Week if I Spent Like This Every Day: $345.94. Refinery29, if you’re still looking for people with zero understanding of how money works, give me a call.
It probably goes without saying, but this could have been a lot worse. If you factored a weekend brunch into this plus even the tamest of nighttime activities, were’ looking at $500 a week. Who do I think I am? Bill Gates?
I know that, compared to a lot of people in a lot of places, I’m doing pretty well. I have an apartment that is cute when I actually clean it. I manage to eat enough food to feel bad about myself. My cat goes to a vet that’s nicer than my actual doctor. I feel safe spending at least $7 extra dollars a week just to gain the affection of a barista who will never know my name. I’ve done okay for myself.
Shout out to people living in more expensive cities with less means. You’re the real MVP’s. Feel free to teach my your ways, unless they require that I stop spending $20 a week on extravagant cheeses to accompany my CW shows. That’s just not a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
Images: Giphy (5)