I suck at being frugal

Yep. I do. Really badly. I've never been good at saying "no" to things I want; I've just been lucky that I rarely want expensive things. But recently my life expenses have been sky-high (what with the move and all: rental truck and buying gas for 2 vehicles for a 7 hour drive, first month's rent and security deposit, renter's insurance, old and new utilities, and a bunch of miscellany, the pets' yearly checkups/meds, and then pet food) and then I found out that there had been a screw-up (totally my own fault) with my cable bill, and that I owed 3 months' back payments to them. Crap. So I decided to buckle down. I bailed on the $21 challenge because I still had a bunch of fresh food in the house, which I didn't want to spoil while I ate only from the "$21 stash", but I decided to see what I could get for $21. And I certainly didn't make the wisest choices.

I got: 3 lb kale, 1 lb tomatoes, 4 lemons ($4.50, farmers' market)
2 lb uncooked brown rice, 2 1-lb boxes pasta, 1 head garlic ($5.05, grocery store)
apples, Luna Bar ($4.70, Trader Joe's)
1 veggie burrito ($5.90, Chipotle)

I was doing well for a while there...and I still think that in theory, I could do it. The rice and pasta, plus the veggies (I'd probably skip the lemons, and buy some...hmm, carrots I guess, or an onion), minus the Luna Bar, and with some canned beans/dried lentils instead of the burrito, would get me through the week under budget. I'll have to try that...because despite my brokeness (broke-osity? what in the world is the noun for being broke?) I bought yarn. Eleven hundred yards of beautiful baby alpaca. (I only need about 300 yards for my lovely lovely soulmate of a scarf, but I needed 2 colors, and it comes in 550-yard skeins.) And yeah...the yarn was more than 3 weeks' worth of $21 groceries. But it is soft and wonderful. And not itchy, yay! And could make, uh, 4 scarves. (NOT that I plan on making 4 scarves, I'm just sayin'.) Yet I have no appropriate needles. (I'm thinking -- ugh -- 4s.) I'll buy my needles at Wal-Mart. And pretend that I am being frugal.