I woke up this morning and life was great. Highly productive weekend. All of the bills were paid on time. I had over $1,000 in the savings account and a plan to pay off the Commerce credit card. I had planned out where the bill paying account was going to go for the next month and a half. I had checked in on my school financing project and was right on target. My state income tax return was still to come in. Life was good.
Then I got into the car and drove to work and discovered that the passenger window would not go up. It was truly amazing how something so simple could make a day seem so cloudy. This was just another sign that I needed to replace this car. So I started thinking about it. I could give up the paying off the Commerce card and reduce what I am paying down on another card. That should give me about $300 a month and then I could….so I took my bill paying plan for the next month and started checking out changes. Fortunate that I did this because I realized that I was $200 off and would be have been in overdraft in short order. So I fixed that and to fix that I had to take $120 from savings and $210 from the money market holding the $1,000. Needless to say I no longer had $1,000 in the account. Then I checked out some other things. I needed to reduce the Commerce payment so i didn’t end up in the hole. The other card I couldn’t reduce or I wouldn’t even be making the finance charges. So then I started thinking…..no this isn’t right so I added up what I pay or plan to pay for the next month for my credit card and line of credit. Add to that the rent, tithe to the church and expected utilities. Then put on that the Netflix, blockbuster accounts and the subsidizing of my favorite soldiers angel. Then if I take the idea that I get 2 paychecks a month that leaves me with……drum roll….98.22. That doesn’t leave me much of a car payment. Then I started the perhaps if I do this or maybe do that and sunk into a funk.
I believe I can do this. It is the year of “I believe I can”. I don’t know how without sacrificing something else but I will find a way. Perhaps I need to reduce the cable bill or I need to reduce the spending money so that it is less and figure out how to do it with less. I can’t earn more as we have no raises this year and I won’t cut my tithe. Maybe the blockbuster or netflix has to go. I won’t give up the soldiers angel but maybe those have to be subsizdized by the spending money and not the bill paying. I really just must believe in myself. If all those other people can do it then I can too. I just have to keep believing and keep figuring out how.
