For those that are curious (since I've been a slackard talking about my challenge) I am still saving my ones and my coins from my allowance. I'm not counting as faithfully as when I was tracking the 'Change and Buck Bucket' at the end of '06, but from my monthly deposits I'm still averaging about $100 per month.

And yes, my $25 birthday money went straight into the can for the challenge

In the spirit of the challenge, I'm using this money to pay for my photography enterprise. It's covered expenses for the website like domain name and hosting, and I'll use it to buy business cards in the next week or two. I have also bought a new camera bag and case for my digital memory sticks with my challenge money, for a total so far of about $100 spent. Next on my list is a wide angle lens, tripod, and lens cleaning kit. Actually, I have enough stashed to get these and still have some left over even without next week's deposit, which is kinda nice.

I guess the most impressive, at least to me, is that I've actually been spending my allowance somewhat willy-nilly and have still been able to save about 25% of it. Last month I bought a new pair of heels and a new pair of boots to the tune of $50 (12.5% of my total allowance) and saved about 30%. This month I bought myself a car charger and case for my cellphone as a birthday splurge from my allowance and am still on track to have money left over when the mid-month replinishment comes next week. What this boils down to is, while I am still buying lunch and breakfast out sometimes, I'm apparently spending significantly less on the daily 'grind' because I am able to treat myself to some nice splurges and save the same amount or more as I was before. Cool!

Seriously, I need to get better about keeping the blog posted with this. Again with the 'anonymous' accountability, although now that I'm publishing articles I guess it's not so anonymous as before. Doh!