Recent Posts
My Open Wallet: A Personal Finance Blog about Money and Life in New York
Return To Blog Listing
An anonymous New Yorker tells the world how much money she earns, spends, and saves.
I am a 30-something single woman living in Brooklyn, NY. I write about how much money I make, what I spend it on, how much I save, how I budget, my home-buying experienc
Recent Posts Tagged With 'food'
Last Summer's Vacation (Yes, It Was Botswana!)
I can't believe it's taken me so long to get this written! Sorry I've been torturing my loyal readers for over a year. But if you think that was bad, get this: I told no one in my family, other than my very discreet sister, that I was going to Africa...
If You Think $5 for a Slice of Pizza is Bad, How About $50,000 for Hot Dogs?
Read this article:Hot dog heartache has come to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where the Parks Department on Friday evicted a weiner vendor who couldn't pay his $53,558 monthly rent.Over $50,000 a month for the right to sell hot dogs in a prime spot...
A $5 Slice of Pizza??
Yep, right here in Brooklyn: On Avenue J in the Midwood section of Brooklyn, a small cup of coffee costs $1.39. An 18-stick package of gum is $1.49. And at Di Fara Pizza, the price of a plain cheese slice: $5.Crowds form at the counter at Di Fara and...
Money Doesn't Motivate People to Lose Weight?
An interesting tidbit from the NY Times:Behavior: Money Not a Motivator in Losing Weight Researchers studied 2,407 overweight and obese people enrolled in weight-loss schemes at their jobs. Participants were divided into three groups. The first recei...
Is Eye Candy Always Expensive?
This post from The World of Wealth reminded me of something I'd been trying to write about a few months ago. First, an excerpt from MEG's post:It's been over a month since I joined my new upscale gym, and I have never looked back!It costs over $130 a...
Weekend With the Parents
It was a couple of weeks ago now that I went to visit my parents. It had been a couple of months since I was there, which seemed okay since my father's health has been relatively good, but I was getting anxious about visiting again so I'd have a chan...
Starbucks Overcharged People for Espresso
Just saw this little news tidbit:A Double Charge for a Double EspressoBecause of a computer glitch, Starbucks accidentally charged about 1 million customers double for their coffee purchases on May 22 and part of May 23.This revealed two things: Star...
The Economics of Opening a Bar in New York
This was in New York Magazine a couple of weeks ago and I found it interesting:Bar-onomicsSo you want to open a bar, huh? A profitable bar? We asked four experts to run the numbers on a make- believe, 1,000-square-foot neighborhood pub in the East Vi...
When To Buy Organic
Here's a helpful tip from the April issue of Cooking Light magazine. As part of an article about organic produce, they tell you which non-organic fruits and vegetables are more likely to contain pesticides so you can buy only the organic options that...
Snicker Shock
I had a little candy attack yesterday when I bought my lunch at the deli. Most times, I am able to resist these temptations, but lately I've been building up a real craving! And maybe PMS tipped me over the edge or something, I don't know...Anyway, I...
Money for Candy
Apparently sugar can sweeten even the sour taste of insolvency: When Economy Sours, Tootsie Rolls Soothe SoulsAt the Candy Store in San Francisco, the owner, Diane Campbell, has tripled her orders for nostalgic candies like Necco Wafers and Mallo Cup...
My Dinner with Richard
I had a nice meal last night with a friend who I'll call Richard. He owns a small business which has been very successful in the last few years, catering to a very wealthy clientele. Richard himself seems pretty wealthy these days, and it's gotten to...
Dieting For Dollars
Financial incentives may be an effective way to help people lose weight, according to this New York Times article: Dieting? Put Your Money Where Your Fat Is.Most diet bettors agreed that while losing weight was the ultimate goal, winning the bet — ...
Financial Goals for 2009
I've been trying to come up with some goals and resolutions for 2009 and I'm having a hard time! Everything is so uncertain right now, it seems useless to set a net worth goal. I'm trying to just focus on little things I can control, so here are a fe...
Details on the Food Budget
As other readers have, SingleMa expressed some shock as to how a single woman could manage to spend over $8,000 a year on food, quite consistently. So I dumped some Quicken data into a spreadsheet so I could look at it differently:Breakfast:For coffe...
In Praise of Tiny Kitchens
Hooray for Mark Bittman, who reminds us that you don't need a gigantic, expensive kitchen to cook well.So Your Kitchen is Tiny. So What? (NY Times 12/13)My own kitchen, which is what many New Yorkers would consider halfway decent (and is much like th...
Unitaskers at The Unclutterer
This regular feature always cracks me up: Unitasker Wednesday at The Unclutterer.Single-use items are a great way to waste money, and The Unclutterer manages to find some real gems. This one's a classic: the Jumbo Jerky Works Gun.Though it may look a...
It's Come to This...
... I'm eating hummus and stale crackers for lunch in an effort to get my food budget under control! (Yesterday, I bought a little box of fresh crackers from the deli across the street-- today I brought crackers that had been in my kitchen cabinet fo...
