Okay, this challenge is doing good and bad things to my head.

On the bad side-Friday, I called my doctor's office at eleven to confirm my noon appointment. Well, my appointment was at 10:15 (my last appointment had been at noon). So, I may be facing the "missed appointment" fee, and I don't know how I'm gonna handle it. I think it might be $80 - I was almost charged earlier this year for cancelling a same day but I had a migraine, so they waived it. I don't think they'll wave it again in such a short period. If I was really minimum wage, I'd try to claim hardship, but I can't, so I either need to take the hit or pay it outside the challenge. I will most likely just pay a portion each month and suffer-as this challenge wasn't meant to be super easy.

On the plus side, my frugal mindset is back. At work I declined 2 offers to go out to lunch. One person, who I've treated a lot in the past (yeah, my combined vice-dining and giving gifts) offered to take me out (her house finally sold) but I declined, saying I appreciated the offer but I was into my packed lunch, and explaining like it felt I would be cheating on the challenge.

We had our payday "pool" - buy 3 tickets for a dollar, half the collected funds go to the lucky winner of a the drawn ticket, the other half goes to the Employee Recreation Fund. As I work for the County, this money is used for items that taxpayer dollars can't go towards, such as microwaves and a refrigerator in the kitchen. I decided to pitch in a $1 of my entertainment money, after mulling it over. Now everyone at at work knows and thinks I'm a big goober, but are humourously supportive. Of course I didn't win the pool.

Last night, Friday night, we did get pizza, but it only cost me $1.25, as we used a $20 gift certificate we already had. It was 2 pizzas, with soda and breadsticks, and we picked it up.

I could feel guilty, but I figure, it makes the most sense to use these gift certificates I have when I'm trying to save money, so I'm not really breaking the rules. Normally, I would either make a store brand Boboli pizza or get take and bake-$22.50 is a huge amount of money for pizza even when I'm carefree. But, as I said, I was using a gift certificate.

Today, I am using up freezer and fridge food, and I made two pasta casseroles, and one is going into the freezer as a "fast food/take out" for when I don't want to cook.

I am hanging some laundry in the house, even though it is very cold. I will see if it dries at all; we aren't running heat in any room, so it may not work. I have a sweater on but my hands are so chilled I am having trouble typing. I did do the double spin, and I ran it on the short cycle with the lid up, so it stopped part-way and soaked until I put the lid down. I figure I got a long cycle wash for a short cycle price.

Spent so far: $402.25 ($2.25 entertainment, $400 rent)
$670.75 left for the month, depending on my doctors bill......