A Frugal Challenge

Despite my best efforts, the amount owed on my American Express card is far, far too high.  Part of that is down to all the race fees I've paid recently, my semi-frugal minibreak, higher gas prices, six months of car insurance, oil change, haircut--but whatever the reason, it needs to get back to $0.00 ASAP!  Especially since I have another semi-frugal vacation/conference coming up.  For the conference, I've been planning out how to get as many free meals as possible, so there's some significant savings, but there's also the money lost from missing work (curse of the part-timer), and the added expense of adventuring.  I've got money socked away in my travel fund to pay for all the shenanigans I plan to get up to in NOLA, but there's nothing better than to go on vacation with a clean financial slate--much more relaxing.

To reign in the spending, I'm issuing to myself a frugal challenge until I leave for New Orleans on June 23: No non-essential spending.  I may buy food and gas and pay my bills, but I don't need anything else.  I'm also going to try to find some extra money--there always some way to make a little extra.

As always something else will come up over the course of the month that I'll need to pay for, so I'll evaluate that on a case-by-case basis, but the goal is to get this credit card back down to zero before I start my vacation. Total amount owed: $800.  Since my utilities bills are pretty low this time of  year, I should just be able to do it, but only if I stay on track.

Wish me luck!