As primary day approaches, a look at the candidates’ spending may shed light on internal campaign operations. Mayor Bloomberg, for example, spent $34,128 in the last filing period feeding his staff. Of that, $10,819 paid for caffeinated beverages. Below are a few spending vignettes that emerged yesterday as all of the expenditure forms submitted by the campaigns for the two month period that ended July 11 became available online:

All of the Democratic mayoral candidates except the City Council speaker, Gifford Miller, paid Federal Express to mail at least some of their overnight packages.

That doesn’t sit well with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. According to the union’s national director of communications, Bret Caldwell, FedEx is “not only a nonunion company but an anti-union company.”

Mr. Caldwell, whose union represents workers at UPS and DHL, said, “We urge candidates not to use [FedEx] because of their anti-union positions. Certainly a New York Democratic candidate should not be using FedEx.” He said the candidates should make a change, adding, “If they don’t, that’s a big mistake because it’s the kind of thing unions will look at.”

In the last filing period, the Manhattan borough president, C. Virginia Fields, spent more than her competitors at FedEx: $375.

Rep. Anthony Weiner spent only $17 at FedEx, compared to $613 at DHL, where his campaign has an account.

The Ferrer campaign spent $118 at FedEx.

A Ferrer spokeswoman, Christy Setzer, said, “We make every effort to use union labor. Freddy Ferrer has a 30-year career supporting union labor.”

She added that for overnight mailings, the campaign has an account with UPS, which it will make every effort to use in the future.

Mr. Miller shipped with UPS, as did Mr. Bloomberg.

***

This might be the year of TiVo.

In the last filing period, Mr. Weiner’s campaign was the only one to report spending for a digital video recording service, but calls to other campaigns disclosed that Mr. Weiner is not alone. The Bloomberg campaign gets a similar product as part of its Time Warner Cable service. Until very recently, the Fields campaign recorded news reports the old-fashioned way and watched them later. In the last couple of weeks, her campaign has signed up for TiVo, as has the Miller campaign. Only the Ferrer campaign remains DVR-free.

***

Traditionally, elected officials who are running for mayor repay the government for the cost of transportation to campaign events in city vehicles.

Mr. Bloomberg is taking that practice to a new level – he is paying for the full cost of his government vehicle.

Since March, he has paid out $8,217.

Mr. Miller is taking a more traditional route, paying the campaign at a rate of 28 cents a mile for campaign-related trips in his council car.