How do you spend your money? Part 5

In our latest installment of How Do You Spend Your Money? we met Reg—a heavy equipment operator in his late 50s. Take it away, Reg!

When it comes to spending, if I need something, I get it—somehow, someway. If I don’t need something, I don’t buy it. I’m not really tight with money, but I’m not free with it either. My savings are pretty limited—a lot of what I make gets spent and I don’t tend to save a lot. My wife deals with the bills and I figure the bills will find me if something happens. Day to day though I don’t think I spend a whole lot, unless a good deal comes along.

Monday

Total: $0

I didn’t spend anything today. I packed my lunch at home, took a Thermos of coffee, and went to work. Where I run heavy equipment, I usually work alone in my machine and don’t often have a lot of time to get coffee or lunch out. After work, I had a homecooked meal with my wife. Later in the evening, friends of ours came up to the house for tea.

Tuesday

Total: $15.73

I was called into work on overtime and stopped on my way in for coffee and a doughnut. Again, I brought my lunch from home. My wife was out tonight, so after work I went home and fried some potatoes and onions for supper.

Supper wasn’t all that filling, so later on in the evening my wife and I took a late-night drive into town where I spent $12.65 on fast food.

Wednesday

Total: $0

Today was pretty low-key—again, I went to work, brought my lunch from home, and came home to a homemade supper. I spent the evening at home and watched a little bit of TV before turning in.

Thursday

Total: $0

My job involves shift work, which means that while I work longer days, I also have longer stretches of time off. Today was the beginning of my days off, so I decided to stay home and get some much-needed work around the house done. My wife and I live on a larger piece of land pretty far outside of town and our driveway is more like a small dirt road. I have a second-hand plow truck for the winters that gets the job done, but isn’t always the most reliable. I’ve been looking for a cheap second-hand replacement vehicle, so I spent part of the evening searching on Kijiji to see if there was anything on there that might do the job a little bit better for a decent price, but didn’t really see anything worthwhile.

Friday

Total: $1.79

I was off work again today. Sometimes on my days off, I do some work with another local construction company for a little extra money, but it rained today, so again I found myself with some free time. I gave a friend of mine a hand fixing his car and afterwards we grabbed a coffee out.  My wife and I had supper at our friends’ home and later on went for a drive together.

Saturday

Total: $251.47

My sister-in-law and brother-in-law are coming up from the States in a couple of months and we’re working to get our guest bedroom ready for their visit. My wife is mostly taking care of the details here, but since I was off, we picked up a few groceries in town together and bought sheets for the guest bedroom and some new hand towels for the guest bathroom that were on sale. After we got home, I spent the afternoon cleaning up the basement, which currently doubles as my workshop.

My daughter and grandson came over for supper and a visit. It was nice to have the family time.

Sunday

Total: $55.00

I started the morning by going to church with my wife. On the way home, I filled my car with gas and we had grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch at home. In the afternoon, I had a nap and watched a little TV in the evening. 

Final Thoughts

Total for the Week: $322.20

Looking at my spending for the week, there’s nothing here that I would do differently. I really only spend if I need something and am good about eating at home and not buying coffee out, so even though I’m not really a saver, this makes it pretty easy to keep a hold of a little bit of cash in case I need something.