Less money more problems
December is a rough month on the budget. Gift shopping and other extra expenses don't go well with a month of little-to-no overtime. And this last Xmas was worse than usual, with a bit of delayed car maintenance being followed by lots of vet bills over a brief period. (Dizzy is about due for his annual exam and vaccinations. I've held off on making his appointment because of that maxed-out card.)
I'd gotten in the habit of picking up as much overtime as possible in January and February to try to get my finances into better shape. But this time around we had a few ice storms keeping the workload low in mid-month, and upper management had their semi-annual freakout about overtime just now, so we're supposed to be clocking out on time until things let up, unless there's a genuine need.
Used to be I'd get an actual tax refund, so I got in the habit of using that money to take cats to the vet in mid-February (my last job took Presidents' Day off every year, right around the time my refund came in) and then maybe drop a few hundred onto a bill owed or get new glasses or some such. Nowadays I get basically nothing back and this year I had to pay $71, which was no help. Also, I had to empty my savings account to get new tires right at the start of the month. The account wasn't completely wiped out -- but it's low enough that the bank is charging me $5 a month for a "maintenance fee" instead of giving me a piddling cent in interest each month. Which is another reason I'm still trying to toss a bit from each paycheck into the savings account, even with needing to free up as much as possible to whittle that maxed-out card back down. (The monthly interest is now several hundred dollars, which, again, not helpful.)
Thankfully, there are going to be some extra hours on my next paycheck. There was so much work for us to do last night I stuck around an extra two and a half hours past the end of my shift getting it nearly finished. And since I have Tuesday night off (another thing to be thankful for), I won't be making the overtime rate on those extra hours, so I'm staying within the letter of the request to avoid overtime. (Though I did in fact get an extra hour onto last week's timecard as well, due to picking up a bit too much extra time making up for leaving early last Sunday morning, and then having so much work left Saturday morning I deliberately stayed a little late.)
But, yeah. Wound up pulling out a credit card I had paid off years ago, to use to get me through the next few months. The good news is the Xmas Swiss Colony bill is only a couple more payments away from being gone. (This month's payment was budgeted for my next paycheck, but I swapped it with my cell phone bill because I'm expecting a bigger check next time and the T-Mobile bill is $50 more.) The bad news of course being that here I am giving myself another debt to stretch each month's pay towards.
The really hopeful thing is that I'm counting down to having my car paid off. That is going to make a huge difference in my monthly budget (and is also why I was willing to drop a bunch on maintenance in October -- I need this baby running well for years to come). Treading water till summer is the plan.
I'd just like to avoid any more major unexpected expenses until then.
Crossposted from Dreamwidth with
comments made.
I'd gotten in the habit of picking up as much overtime as possible in January and February to try to get my finances into better shape. But this time around we had a few ice storms keeping the workload low in mid-month, and upper management had their semi-annual freakout about overtime just now, so we're supposed to be clocking out on time until things let up, unless there's a genuine need.
Used to be I'd get an actual tax refund, so I got in the habit of using that money to take cats to the vet in mid-February (my last job took Presidents' Day off every year, right around the time my refund came in) and then maybe drop a few hundred onto a bill owed or get new glasses or some such. Nowadays I get basically nothing back and this year I had to pay $71, which was no help. Also, I had to empty my savings account to get new tires right at the start of the month. The account wasn't completely wiped out -- but it's low enough that the bank is charging me $5 a month for a "maintenance fee" instead of giving me a piddling cent in interest each month. Which is another reason I'm still trying to toss a bit from each paycheck into the savings account, even with needing to free up as much as possible to whittle that maxed-out card back down. (The monthly interest is now several hundred dollars, which, again, not helpful.)
Thankfully, there are going to be some extra hours on my next paycheck. There was so much work for us to do last night I stuck around an extra two and a half hours past the end of my shift getting it nearly finished. And since I have Tuesday night off (another thing to be thankful for), I won't be making the overtime rate on those extra hours, so I'm staying within the letter of the request to avoid overtime. (Though I did in fact get an extra hour onto last week's timecard as well, due to picking up a bit too much extra time making up for leaving early last Sunday morning, and then having so much work left Saturday morning I deliberately stayed a little late.)
But, yeah. Wound up pulling out a credit card I had paid off years ago, to use to get me through the next few months. The good news is the Xmas Swiss Colony bill is only a couple more payments away from being gone. (This month's payment was budgeted for my next paycheck, but I swapped it with my cell phone bill because I'm expecting a bigger check next time and the T-Mobile bill is $50 more.) The bad news of course being that here I am giving myself another debt to stretch each month's pay towards.
The really hopeful thing is that I'm counting down to having my car paid off. That is going to make a huge difference in my monthly budget (and is also why I was willing to drop a bunch on maintenance in October -- I need this baby running well for years to come). Treading water till summer is the plan.
I'd just like to avoid any more major unexpected expenses until then.
Crossposted from Dreamwidth with
comments made.