Tracking my expenses dollar by dollar, day by day. Here’s what I spent this week:

May 12: $0.50 on a pack of Ritz crackers with peanut butter at the little convenience store at work. The shop’s manager is a blind man, and he had to feel the crackers to verify what I was buying. That was the most interesting part of this purchase.

May 13: I traveled for work and on the way home stopped at this adorable cafe for a decaf coffee and one of the tastier cookies I’ve had in a while - a granola ball, it was called. Total cost: $2.50. Plus I bought $6 of gas, for which my employer will reimburse me.

Also on May 13: I got paid, and I paid some bills. Specifically:

• $140 to MasterCard
• $66 to the electric company
• $35 for medical bills

May 14: Didn’t buy a single thing.

May 15:

• $28 to FINALLY get my PA drivers license
• $11 for spanikopita, saganaki and a baklava sundae at a local Greek festival
• $3 for a beer after the festival
• $6 for AAA batteries so my friends and I could play Guitar Hero II at my place afterward

May 16: Went grocery shopping and spent $37.

Grand total: $335

Now, if you’re like me, you probably find these posts somewhat useless. What good is it to know what I’m spending if I don’t know what I should be spending? In other words, it’s about time I made myself a budget and started tracking my expenditures categorically and with some goals in mind.

So that’s what tomorrow’s post will cover. How to budget, or how to start budgeting: Tips from a beginner and the PF the blogosphere. Until then.