Tuesday, December 18, 2007

How I've Spent $125 Gift So Far

A few weeks ago I posted about receiving a birthday/anniversary gift from my in-laws for $250. My wife and I couldn't decide on something together to get, so we decided to split it. Here's what I've spent so far:

$20 Vintage RISK game with the wooden pieces
$6 UNO Wild Tiles - I used to play this as a kid and loved it, brought to a Christmas party that my small group at church had and we had a lot of fun
$10 Finance - Old board game similar to Monopoly.
$21 - MCTS 70-536 book to study for the exam, I'm wanting to get certified more

That leaves me with $68. The reason I'm doing the math is to keep myself accountable, since I can easily just feel like I have all the money in the world and spend beyond the $125 without even thinking about it. The other reason is that I just got a $100 American Express gift card from work and now almost back to the same dilemma. The choices have changed a bit:

- Wood Stove: This will get us ready for the installation in the summer. I'd hold off the purchase until the sales in February. I'd be looking in the $150-$250 range.

- KitchenAid Mixer: My wife has for the longest time wanted one of those mixers on a stand. We have a hand mixer, but it has limitations (which we hit a bit of this weekend when trying to make dinner rolls). It runs for $150.

- Certification exams: I'm planning on taking at least 3 exams this coming year to get myself certified, I don't know if this should be taken from my fun money or if we need to setup an education fund. Items like this will help my career and future income. Each test will run about $125 each. I've got all the study materials I need.

I'm leaning towards the exams as choice #1, mixer as #2, and wood stove as #3. What do you think?

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