Spendy McSpenderson

Well, well, aren’t we the Spendy McSpenderson couple.

First up: We now own an Xbox 360. A red one, no less.

Here’s how it happened: EB Games were having a firesale on pre-owned consoles. T mentioned he’d like to save for one. I said that this was a really good deal, and he had enough to buy one now…but I made sure to stress to him that he’d really need to be stringent about saving from now.

And it seems to have been a turning point for him – rather than saving for the worst, I think I need to couch it in terms of saving for opportunities. Funnily enough, I’d been fretting that he wasn’t saving nearly enough. I wanted him to feel like he was in control of his money, so I’d been asking him to decide how much he wanted to save/spend once the bills were paid. Most of the time, he opted for roughly a 50/50 split.

Unfortunately, the 20GB ones were all out ($220). There were 120GB versions for $367 *choke* but seeing as it was technically HIS money to spend, I refrained from telling him he should wait. I did drop bellyaching hints about the large price difference, but in the end, we walked out with the 120GB. And he seems to be making good use of it, having already downloaded one or two games. And it’s still cheaper than a brand new one. And did I mention it’s red?

I think we now know what he’ll be spending a lot of play money on. Xbox Live membership, for one. The first month is free, but after that you gotta cough up. They have a deal going for new members – 50 per cent off, so $15 for three months – which I suppose isn’t bad, but it’s still a bit of a rort. And games.

My phone charger also died this month. By died, I mean warped-its-tines-while-being-shunted-around-in-my-handbag-far-beyond-repair. Instead of buying a new charger online – which I did, albeit a week later – we bought a new phone.

Granted, I hated my cellphone. I wanted a new one. And we happened to have free tickets to the Home Show that weekend, and PB Tech had a stall there with some sweet deals. T is now using a touchscreen Acer smartphone, and I may or may not take over it at some point. It gets Google Maps, which cools my lust for a GPS.

We also picked up a hard drive there for his mother’s birthday. That all came to nearly $340, of which he paid $200. My share came from one of his friends paying me for one of my extra Metallica tickets.

Um, and add to that a large amount spent this last week on food (our weekend away) and T’s birthday (again, food, and Halo: Wars) and my clothes shopping. I haven’t spent like this all year, or, quite possibly, ever. Two pairs of shoes plus runners, two skirts, two tops and a handbag. Eek!

Balance…balance…it’s a tricky one! Living for today while saving for tomorrow.