If you recall, I managed—somewhat miraculously—to stick to my budget during my first of two weeks in the Northeast. In fact, I was under budget. But I quickly got back into the routine of being a New Yorker (pair that with the fact that I was couch surfing) and not only did I go way over budget, I didn’t even keep very good track of what I spent.

Here’s what I was sober enough to recount to you now:

The week (my “fiscal week” begins on Thursdays) was off to a pretty good start. I didn’t eat breakfast Thursday and lunch was on my editor. Thursday night, the friend I was staying with made the most delicious fish tacos I’ve ever had (recipe to come later, hopefully!). Friday I skipped breakfast yet again (a bad New York habit I thought I’d broken after moving to Kansas City) and had a $6 street meat lunch. Friday night a now-new friend I’d met through Twitter (@emilyspearl) and this blog kindly invited me over to dinner after reading my post concerning my fear of going over budget while in the city, and made two ridiculously delicious recipes she was testing for Shauna James Ahern’s (The Gluten Free Girl’s) upcoming second book. Even Saturday wasn’t so bad; I skipped dinner and went straight for the drinks—which don’t count toward my $50 a week and led to a drama better left for another blog, another day.

Sunday is when it all went to shit. As promised, I visited my friend The Shameless Carnivore who bartends at Brooklyn’s Char No. 4 for brunch. I spent about $40, including tip. I think around $20 of that went to food. Sunday night I spent about $6 on meat for a friend’s BBQ and Monday night I consumed an embarrassing amount of over-priced, over-processed food before, during and after the Wilco show at Coney Island—which I attended with Adam. But my most shameful moment, however, was not ordering a Nathan’s sandwich by the calorie count (Yes, I really said “I’ll have the 1680-calorie chicken sandwich and the 300-calorie fries!”), but on Tuesday morning when I spent a whopping $11-something at Dean & Deluca for candied pecans to go in my Icelandic style yogurt, all to be washed down by a large iced coffee. To all the people who called me some variation of a yuppie asshole on TIME’s Cheapskate blog yesterday, you’re right (but I never claimed not to be).

And then I came home. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: budget analysis, char no. 4, cheapskate blog, coffee, coney island, dean & deluca, expensive coffee, milk, nathan's, over budget, peanut butter, quinoa, shauna james ahern, shopping, the gluten-free girl, the shameless carnivore, TIME magazine, wilco, yuppie