Worth clearing up one thing: that $75 hold at the pump is not the same as money leaving your account. It is a pending charge and most banks drop it once the real amount comes through, usually within a day. The tricky part is your $35 available balance already had those other charges counted against it, so the hold was not really what drained you. What probably got you was the auto renewal, rent, and phone bill hitting the same morning, and the hold just added to the mess. I check pending charges in my app every Sunday night, since pending items show up separately from posted ones and that is the easiest way to see what is still breathing down your neck.

Dropping 2 lbs for $230 works out to around $115 a pound, which sounds steep until you actually carry the thing up a pass. Your knees do not care about the price tag, they only care about the weight. I run the same math on every piece of gear before I buy it, and the stuff that saves weight where it counts always wins. Sleeping warm at 11,000 ft is the real test too, because a light quilt that leaves you shivering is just an expensive way to have a bad night. You did fine.