Monday, November 12, 2012

How much does it cost to be a bridesmaid?

My sister got married recently and she asked me to be her matron of honor. I was honored to be a part of her big day, but it didn't come without a cost. I was wondering just how much it cost me. Here is the break down.

Bridesmaid dress: $164

Bridal shower including gift: $180

Bachelorette party including gift and dinner out and massage: $428

Manicure and hair on wedding day: $0 (thankfully was paid by my sister, but it probably would have been another $80 or so)

Gift to the bride and groom on their wedding day: $150

Lost income (after tax) because I had to take a day off of work: $80

Gas to drive there and back: $50

Total: $1,052

Whew!

And it could have been worse because they got married out of town, so if we would have stayed in a hotel it would be been about $250 to $300 more. Thankfully my parents recently bought a house not that far from where they got married, so we just stayed there to save money. One frustrating thing I found was for both the shower and bachelorette party the hosts decided to split the costs evenly among the hosts, but apparently a lot of them are not bargain shoppers. I ended up having to pay more both times at the end of it all. Some of my aunts went overboard with the decorations and instead of buying their food at the grocery store, they ordered it from a restaurant. For the bachelorette party 2 of the girls spent over $300 each! They were in charge of the alcoholic beverages though, so that was part of the problem. As someone who will only have a drink every once in a while, I am not used to how expensive that can be! And then I was in charge of collecting the money from those that underpaid and reimbursing those that overpaid and 2 of them would didn't pay me. So then I had to take on that extra expense. One owed $93 and the other owed only $30, but still that's $123 that would be nice to have right now!

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Extra Cash Challenge - October results

Here are my results for my extra cash challenge for October, 2012.

Advertising: $77.91
Amazon: $98.42
ING: $8.00
Lending Club: $.88

Total: $185.21

Difference from last month: +$25.06

Overall not a bad month, however my adverting income wasn't as high as normal. Thankfully I sold a lot of a book that was released this past month, so my monthly Amazon earnings were probably the highest ever! I expect the earnings from Amazon to drop in November, so hopefully some of my other income sources will increase.

I don't really have much more to report this month. I decided I am going to add another $100 to Lending Club. I feel like I haven't been invested in it long enough to know for sure if I like it, but $100 is not a huge amount to risk.