Sometimes you just have to laugh, don't you?
A few days ago I wrote a post setting some goals for July. It published on Tuesday, July 1, the day that I started my new job, but I'd written it over the weekend.
Monday night, a massive, massive storm hit my area, taking out hundreds of trees and power lines. My house and car are fine (others were not so lucky) but we did lose power for three days. It wasn't really that big of a deal in many ways; campus did keep the lights on, so I could buy breakfast and shower there, and it stays light really late here in the summer so even being at home in the evening wasn't too bad.
But July ended up starting off with (1) having to toss a garbage bag's worth of stuff from the fridge that I otherwise would have eaten; (2) buying breakfast for three mornings at $5 a pop (coffee and oatmeal) instead of eating for pennies at home; (3) more driving than I'd typically do in a week (more gas.)
Well, I guess that is why most people have emergency funds, isn't it? I, however, have $75 and I'm not touching it :) The upshot is that I'll have a smaller debt payment than planned this month, probably, as I increase my grocery budget to compensate.
The other July goal that is already toast is to contribute $1000 to my 403(b). This one is not my fault either; for boring administrative computer system reasons, even though I am already working and should get paid on time, I can't fill out my various tax forms until next week, or set up my 403(b) or direct deposit. So my first July paycheck should arrive on time, but it will be weird; it won't have anything taken out for the 403(b). I'm not sure how to handle that yet. I should end up with a bigger paycheck than I normally will; I could put the "extra" towards debt repayment, or treat it as side hustling and stick it in my Roth IRA like the rest of my side hustle money.
[ETA: I just realized what I will actually do with the one-time extra paycheck money: pay my car registration and license fees since I just moved to a new state and need to re-do everything. Alas for retirement. Well, I'll get there eventually..]
That always happens, doesn't it? Sometimes I wish I'd just wait until I knew the numbers perfectly before I started playing, because then it wouldn't feel like I was changing the plan so much :)
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry you had to throw out a bunch of food. I hate when that happens!
I hated having to do it! I really don't like wasting food in general, and especially not now that I'm trying to keep to this budget. However, I'm grateful to be generally solvent enough that it's not really that big of a deal.
DeleteI've been using YNAB lately -- been meaning to work on a review of it -- and they preach a lot about rolling with the punches, which is probably a good thing for me to hear because I tend to get rigid and then disappointed when things don't work out. Maybe it's helping me handle this particular one better. :)