My Last Hundred Bucks: Resolutions Kept and Broken (Mostly Broken)

by Liz Riegel

Where’d your last hundo go, Liz Riegel?

$38.47: A silly expensive Japanese lunch jar, because I left my old one on the subway by mistake and I was obsessed with it, and it is literally the only way I can compel myself to pack my lunch at home.

$20ish: A pile of cheap microwave lunches and trail mix at Trader Joe’s, because, no, seriously, I cannot force myself to pack my lunch at home in cheap leaky leftover takeout containers, which is all we have in my apartment, and my new lunch jar won’t arrive from Amazon for a week.

$22: Two drinks at a bar, even though I swore I wasn’t going to spend money at a bar in all of this month, but it was my friend’s 40th birthday! That’s a big enough deal to break my resolution, for sure!

$5: A fancy cookie and milk at a cookie shop, even though I was really, honestly not going to buy food out for all of this month even though I’d already broken my prohibition against bars, but I was with my friends and we’d just eaten a frugal dinner at home and THEY wanted cookies so who was I to impose my puritan resolutions on them, and also the cookies looked REALLY good.

$13.50: Two sheets of postage stamps that I used to send postcards to all of my non-local friends and family, because at least I’m capable of keeping ONE of my resolutions.

Liz Riegel lives in NYC.

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