mothers on the verge

You know that the (blue) chips are really down when City folk start cancelling social engagements. Alpha and I were due to go to a birthday party tonight, which was cancelled at the 11th hour due to the birthday boy's bank going bump. A dinner planned for later in the week has also been cancelled, this time due to the host's overwhelming fear that the hedge fund he works for might be about to go bump. Right now I'm sitting in my Central London club (less glamorous than it sounds) and it seems the only people still looking cheerful are the media types. Why do the words 'Nero' and 'fiddle' keep coming to mind?

Buggeration. Our estate agent, a creature I'm not particularly fond of at the best of times (he has the arrogance of youth without the brain cells to complement it), has just called to announce we have to reduce our apartment by at least £100k if we're to have any hope of selling. It's hard to believe that the market has fallen by that much since we first put it on the market a mere four weeks ago, but there you go. Looks like my dream of upgrading to the properly grown-up house in Shepherd's Bush that I've been hankering after, and installing Sven the 18 year-old Swedish au pair in the airy attic room, is fading before my very eyes...

So The Rabbit and I had decided by yesterday that vacations are a little more exhausting than we thought. Plus it was just too damn hot. So we spent almost the entire day doing projects in the house and running a couple of basic errands: buying razor blades, picking up dry cleaning, grabbing ingredients for cookies. ($37.16) A fairly mundane day not barely worth blogging about. The only interesting part came when I realized a quart (NOT half-gallon) of milk clocked in at $2.69!!! (Oh, and that the skim milk I bought had ALREADY BEEN OPENED. A discovery I found when I reached for it this morning for my coffee. Gross. When the Prince got home last night about 8 pm, the idea of cooking was not breaking into my brain and so I did order him takeout from Schiller's: burger, sauteed broccoli, fries. ($22 with tip). And so yesterday's tally: $59.16 Tally for the week: $377.62 Stay tuned for today's results. A babysitter, night out with The Prince. Scary numbers sure to come. Plus t

Oh, will this experiment never end... I am starting to bore myself with having to confront the evidence of my dreary daily routine. Bankruptcy is starting to look like an attractive alternative to penny-pinching penury. Questions I need to ask myself: Why do I never go anywhere except for Pret -a-Manger, Starbucks and the newsagent on the way home from work? Why do I eat and drink the same things every single day?Also, why do I rarely eat anything fruit-like during daylight hours? Why do I smoke so much? It's not like I have the excuse of the foolishness of youth anymore. Why isn't this the week that I'm doing something glamorous or even vaguely interesting? I do go out sometimes, honestly! Is the moon made of cheese? And if so, what kind (because if it's Gorgonzola I'm really not interested)? Does my hugely expensive flight to LA count for Saturday's blog post? I bought it a while ago but surely I can add it in just for a smidgen of added interest? Yes, no?

Having some scanning issues so you'll have to take my word for it but today was pretty wild on the splashing the cash front. Sadly all sensible expenditure which is never a huge heap of fun - my heart may yearn for Bond Street but necessity takes me to the supermarket... sigh... £73.33 at Sainsbury's for groceries and petrol for the car (big yawn) £1.50 for two Diet Cokes at Pret-a-Manger (yes, I am a creature of habit) £4.30 for lunch at Pret-a-Manger (ditto) £5.81 for a pack of Marlboro Lights from the newsagents A grand total of £84.94 ! That's pretty good for 24 hours. The funny thing is that I thought this experiment would make me realise how much money I waste on a daily basis. But it hasn't. It's just made me realise that my life is incredibly dull. This is my daily routine - drop the kids at school, go to work, only leave the office during the day for meetings, sneaky fag breaks or food raids at Pret (which I eat at my desk), come home, put the kids to bed,

So today was New York Vacation Day 3/Credit Crunch Day 4. Finally, today, I spent a realistic amount -- and even had some candy thrown in. On our Third day of vacation, The Rabbit and I invited her great-aunt to join us at the Liberty Science Center. Despite it being fun to have her there, this was also a smart move as she has a car -- and could DRIVE us to our destination. (No subway, bus...) Auntie paid for the parking (another savings), a kindness The Rabbit and I returned by paying for her admission to the center. One adult, one child, one teacher (she's a professor): $32.25. Within 30 minutes of arriving I started to have that insane food attack. I had to eat. We made our way to the lunch counter where lunch was treated upon us. Lovely, and very kind. (and helped with our weekly tally!) We stayed hours today. It's a fantastic place, and while not an easy spot to get for tourists (It's off the Turnpike, in New Jersey. Not exactly a subway ride away), I highly recommend

I have to echo YLM's sentiments that it's hard to document spending without causing guilt to curl every time I whipped out my card. But here goes: The day was off to a late start stalled partially by our President who decided to grace us with his Texan presence and tell us all to "turn off your air conditioners when you're not at home" as a way to temper our hideous energy/inflation/recession crisis. Let's not even talk about his story about the bank run he witnessed in Texas once. How much do I love this sad sad man. Not that much. But I seriously digress. So The Rabbit and I took our New York Vacation today to the Empire State Building. (Subway $2). Mama's never been, and now I know why. Try 90 minutes of waiting time. For elevators. For 10 minutes of staring at my city. Yes, The Chrysler building looked cool from that height. But a word to any future tourist: BUY THE EXPRESS TICKET. I did not. This, apparently, can shave your wait time in half. But...I

In fairness to me, I had forgotten when I agreed to Tally week that The Rabbit was off from camp this week. And I had promised her a New York vacation. The rules are very simple -- we must not do anything we have ever done before, and we must try and act silly like tourists. It's already been great fun for Day One. But the problem is, of course, we are going to spend way more than a normal week's tally of a few cappuccinos and some ice creams from the Mr. Softee truck. But again, perhaps this may give visitors an idea of what it almost does cost to come -- minus, of course, the hotel room! So let's see. We started the morning by running to the post office to mail grandma (that would be my mother) her birthday present and buying a few 1 cent stamps. Postage recently went up and I am too stingy to toss the 41 cent stamps I have still. ($1.71). Then today's adventure was to see the new Kit Kittridge movie (which needs its own post -- SO GOOD. Anyone with a 5+ year old daug

Some how I understood our spending diary to start today -- Sunday. And so in the spirit of true confessions, I decided to just start and spill. Day started off very well -- stayed indoors to fight the retched humidity and so spending was nil. Of course there is the tiny expense of electricity for blasting our non-green air conditioners all day through, but I'll add that in later this week when I gear up for checking the bill. But by the end of the evening, we decided we needed out and needed NOT to cook a meal indoors. And so off we went: dinner at our favorite restaurant, Schiller's where Mama got a very needed glass of Sangria, and The Prince a couple of beers. After? Ice creams! And then to the drug store to search for water guns (very serious item needed for holding own on playground) and finding many school supplies needed for September's Back To School list already sent by The Rabbit's soon-to-be First Grade teacher. Grand Total for the few hours out in Gotham? A

And... I spent nothing! Oh, except for £2 in the collection plate at church (God doesn't hand out receipts so you'll have to take my word for it.) What I have done, however, is figure out the weekly cost of each of the direct debits that fly out of the joint bank account (actually, I'll come clean - I made Alpha work it out for me). I'm not sure if all this comes under 'housing' which by the rules of the game are not included, along with income tax and childcare (you can read the original post here ). However, the UK is so brilliant at applying stealth taxes it would be financially foolish to ignore them. Here goes: Council Tax: £39.23 House contents insurance: £5 Car insurance: £7.69 Road tax: £16 Congestion charge: £16 Service charge: £35 School lunches (for two children): £11.66 Gym membership (Alpha, me and the kids get to swim): £40 Utilities: £40 Telephone (landline): £4 Mobiles: £20 Cable & broadband: £7 OMG. A truly shocking total of £241.58 . And th

As our regular readers will be aware, MM and I will be coming clean about our expenditure every day from tomorrow. We'll be counting every penny/dime we spend in an effort to figure out the true cost of living in both London (where I live) and New York (MM's domicile). You can read the original post here .

The media has been wheezing this week at the revelation that a single British person needs to earn at least £13,400 per year - £158 each week - to afford a basic but acceptable standard of living (not including tax, housing or childcare costs). This Minimum Income Standard, as they call it ( MIS for short), goes up to £370 per week for a couple with two children, while a single parent with one child needs £210. What is particularly interesting about the report, apart from making us all panic a bit more about the credit crunch, is that it's findings are based on The Thoughts of The People via a vaguely impressive-sounding consultation process rather than a bunch of crusty academics busily crunching numbers in their ivory towers. But are we as a nation being a bit greedy in coming up with these amounts? We have to bear in mind that a couple with kids would have to earn double the UK minimum wage to get to the MIS level- certainly not achievable for everyone. As one half of a couple