You may recall that a month or so ago I decided to try to cut the number of credit-card transactions per billing cycle by withdrawing a wad of cash from the credit union and using that to cover transactions of $30 or less. The idea was to have fewer ditzy receipts to keep track of and fewer transactions to have to verify and reconcile.
So, I took out $120, the cycle having already begun, reducing the amount budgeted for credit-card spending from $1100 to $980. The plan was to try to make the cash last till the end of the month, and should it fail before month-end, to economize and reduce the number of credit-card purchases as much as possible.
This was a daring experiment for me. Problem is, money washes through my fingers like sand. The reason I charge everything is that the extra hassle involved in making a credit-card transaction and then knowing I’ll have to ditz with reconciling it against a month-end statement gives me enough pause that I don’t just buy everything my little heart desires. Weirdly, the charge card makes me spend less, and I like having a paper trail for every expenditure.
On the other hand…why? Does anyone really care that they bought a package of disposable razors at the Walgreen’s?
Well, I did run out of cash about 10 days before the end of the month. However, the AMEX billing cycle goes from the 21st to the 21st, so once the pocketbook was emptied, a whole new charge-card budget kicked in. This meant that I had to make two or three charges under $30 between the 21st and the 30th, but because I was determined to keep that stuff to a minimum, I hardly ever went into my favorite food emporia during the last week or so of June.
But it seems to have worked. At the end of the month, the bank account was $145 to the good, and that was in spite of a $200 palm-tree-trimming bill, a $108 water bill, and a $135 power bill.
A hundred and forty-five dollah to spare is pretty good! Usually I just break even, especially as the summer heats up.
There were still plenty of charges to enter and reconcile, but not as many as before. And because I really felt motivated to stay out of stores toward the end of the month, overall spending was really cut. The final AMEX bill: only $837!
Compare that with the usual AMEX budget of $1100.
Now of course, that $1100 was reduced last month by $120, to $980, but I still spent $143 less than that.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens this month. We get our highest power bills in July and August. And the AC has been pounding away in the 118-degree heat. Today is cooler — only around 112 — but it’s getting a bit muggy out there. I figure next month’s electric bill will come in at around $225. The DE filter on the pool needs to be cleaned — that’s a $100 hit. And pretty soon I should get a nuisance notice from the Department of Motor Vehicles, announcing the annual soaking for the car’s air pollution test and registration: another couple hundred bucks down the drain.
So, this month and next month: Stay out of stores! Don’t drive the car!!