Slow Down.

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I'm spending too damn much money.

Since I came back from the quickie September trip I haven't really saved a dime more than what was in the bank when it was over. Still sitting on $7K in there but the plan after Sept was to build up the cushion again to be in a great place for the nearly back-to-back Turkey and Xmas trips. They are both 6-night trips, meaning at least $5K needed on both trips, and, well, you can do the math.

I have just 3 checks between now and lift off for Turkey, so I need to put the brakes on the spending. No more watches. No more buying of party favors. No more spur of the moment Tame Impala shows. No more fucking GrubHub every night to the tune of $25. I've got to tighten up. The LAST thing I want to do is to have to go back to the days of enforced save amounts every check. That means weeks with no Saturday going out, it means living on canned soup for days on end, it means...going back to 2016 pre-Vegas trip me. A sparse time.

It's something I can do. It does mean having to scale back on the subject of my last post, which was to get out and enjoy the City more, but now's the time to hunker down and go into Vegas-first mode. If things don't improve I would have to either scale back or in a hateful world cancel the Xmas trip. Ain't nobody want that. I'm going to go into conserve mode for the next month+ before Turkey, see how that plays out, then may have to go into true hermit mode to build up again for Xmas. December could be a hibernation month. Between Turkey and Xmas there are only 2 checks coming in, so those may have to be 90% earmarked for Vegas. I'm not in panic mode yet but it's time to pull the big living way back for the rest of the year.

Of course winning a little money in November would take the pressure off, but after last trip I know I can't rely on that. April and July were great money trips...September was close to rape. In any case I'm set for a full, balls-out Turkey trip and we'll see where we stand after that. I'm sure some form of Xmas will be going down, but I'd rather not come back from that pregnant and with $.04 cents in the bank. 

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