June Savings: Year of the Deal

Like May, June was an abysmal failure when it came to attempting to track my spending. I was in Peru for 10 days, so I tried to modify my goal. Instead of tracking my monthly spending, I was going to determine exactly how much a trip to Peru, souvenirs and all, cost me.

It was a stupid and ill-planned goal. Receipts are hard to come by in Peru and the last thing I wanted to do on vacation was to write down all my purchases and then convert them to Canadian currency.

It cost me a lot of money to go to Peru, particularly when you factor in the cost of replacing my stolen camera. But it was worth every dime. So instead, some triumphs:

• $6 each for a private room with ensuite our first night in Lima
• 75-minute massages with hot stones (much deserved directly following the pickpocket incident) for roughly $15 
• 75-minute pedicures, complete with paraffin wax for roughly $12
• Alpaca mittens bought one very cold morning for $3
• At $568 per person (plus $55 each for a shared porter), Enigma's Classic Inca Trail Trek was a steal. We had three-course gourmet meals and snacks daily, along with an exceptional guide and a small group. Similar Canadian and American tour operators charge up to $1000 for the same service. 
• Chloé got food poisoning in Lima. While this was far from a triumph, it certainly stretched the beer budget a bit further. We made the best of it by watching movies in our hostel and buying snack food from the grocery store.

I'm basically bleeding dough, but my life is awesome so I don't really care right now. It leads me to believe that maybe I've been going about this the wrong way--maybe instead of focusing on saving money, I should shift my focus to making money?

Year of the Deal: June Savings

Grocery Purchases: $366.14
Pharmacy Purchases: $13.40
Total Spent: $379.54

Coupons Used: $46.00
2011 Coupon Savings to Date: $367.97