Spend Less, Live More (A 26 Point Plan)

1.) Determine to eat out less
2.) Dig into your cookbook collection, the one you have amassed because your mother always gives you cookbooks because at one point in your life you loved to cook and was convinced it was your life's passion.*
3.) Select a recipe. Bonus points if its moderately healthy and tests your culinary skills.
4.) Write down the ingredients on a piece of notebook paper and stash said list in your purse.
5.) The next day, metro to Whole Foods.
6.) Buy everything on the piece of notebook paper, plus a box of your favorite pasta shape (Orichette in my case), a small block of good cheese, and a loaf of excellent whole wheat bread.
7.) Pay for said items and go home.
8.) Unpack items and prepare to start cooking.
9.) See that your friend has left you a voicemail and call her back.
10.) Agree to meet up with her in Adams Morgan to drink with her new beaux's kickball team.
11.) Decide that cooking dinner can wait and instead tear into the loaf of excellent whole wheat bread. Consume a large piece with hummus, figure it will do as a proper "base."
12.) Find friend at the kickball game which is only in the 4th inning. Accompany friend to Common Scare for a quick beer.
13.) Return to kickball field to find that the game has ended.
14.) Commence pilgrimage to the Mill.
15.) Hang out mainly with dudes all night. Dudes who are friends with the bartender who doesn't make you pay for anything.
16.) Chat up the drunk guy and get him to buy you shots.
17.) Eat some of the tater tots your friend's new beaux has bought her.
18.) Manage somehow, despite your boring outfit and smudged eye makeup, to become the object of desire for a married dude.
19.) Get married dude to buy you more beer.
20.) Drink more than you should for a Thursday, and flirt with married dude more than you should for, well for ever honestly.
21.) Snag ride home from friend's beaux.
22.) Spend 10 minutes lecturing married dude about the ethical intricacies of infidelity on the corner near your house.
23.) Shove married dude in cab.
24.) Call it a night.
25.) Wake up late (as usual), replay the night in your head and realize that although you hardly spent any money out drinking the night before you are, to quote J-Lo in the movie the Wedding Planner "a magnet for unavailable men."
26.) Eat more excellent whole wheat bread. Plan on buying a Gatorade and a Tab Energy Drink on the way in to work.


*It's true. I seriously considered culinary school. My stint as a vegan chef killed that dream. I'll be sure to tell you about it later, it's actually a funny story.