Getting through a Social Security-free month

Despite the late, great annoyance of having Social Security confiscate an entire month’s SS income in direct contradiction of what two of its workers said would happen, it looks like October will pass without too much disaster. I’ve managed to scrounge together some cash by combining last spring’s American Express kickback (which, mercifully, I’d stashed in a savings account and so not diddled away) with part of the summer stipend the college paid me to develop this fall’s online magazine writing course.

When it looked like I would only be teaching two sections this fall, one at a time(!), I’d planned to pay the saved stipend to myself over the four months of the fall semester, prorating it so as to provide what I’d get from teaching three sections.

Pay for a semester-long course disbursed over an eight-week short session, obviously, would amount to paychecks equivalent to teaching two sections over sixteen weeks. Not awful, but not enough.

Well. Yes: awful.

I’d figured that if I spread that stipend money over the semester, I’d have about the same as what I’d earn teaching three sections this fall. However, in September I had enough to get by, partly because we had a mild July and utility bills were lower than planned. So I just left that month’s prorated stipend payment in savings. Thank goodness! That allowed me to prorate the chunk of money over three months instead of four, giving me a monthly disbursal of $641.

Without the Social Security income, ordinary cash flow will not provide enough to get by in October. It wouldn’t under the best of circumstances, but…as usual, when you’re broke everything breaks. The most recent storm has cost $100 so far—Gerardo and his sidekick spent three hours yesterday afternoon cleaning up the blanket of debris that was spread over every square foot of my quarter-acre lot. I managed to get most of the crap out of the pool, but now the filter’s clogged. I’m out of diatomaceous earth and so will have to drop another unplanned $20 on that, so that I can backwash the pool. When I backwashed briefly yesterday, the backwash hose burst in three places, spraying me and half the yard with dirty, DE-mudded water, so now I’ll have to buy and install another hose. The electric bill hasn’t arrived yet, but it will be astronomical: last month was the hottest September on record, and it was so humid that I couldn’t keep the thermostat at its usual 84 degrees all day.

I hadn’t planned on having Gerardo come over this month—the storm changed that penny-pinching scheme. And I hadn’t planned on having to get another haircut this month—the new hair stylist, who took the place of the other new hair stylist who did such a great job but who immediately flew the coop, isn’t skilled enough to do a short style that lasts two months. So that’s $150 off the top, as it were…and we’re just one week into the month. Ugh!

Over this penurious summer, I’ve been eating out of the freezer and off the pantry shelves, and so the larder is about bare. Yesterday I spent $113 at Costco, and pretty quick I’ll have to buy more to restock the staples and frozen stash.

OK, so there’s $641 from the re-prorated summer stipend. Sifting through the savings account where that was stashed, I realized I’d never spent the $333 that came in from the Costco AMEX cash “reward” last spring. Actually, I’d stashed it to cover taxes and insurance, after I realized that the $300/month self-escrow I’d been making last year would not cover the jump in homeowner’s and car insurance, on top of property tax on a valuation far in excess of the house’s real value. The AMEX kickback went in there and I jacked up the self-escrow to $325, figuring that amount would cover the 2010 bills. Maybe.

However, this year the county cut property taxes, bringing them more in line with the actual value of Arizona real estate, which at the moment is about nil. So I figured I could raid that $333 and let the future bills take care of themselves. Thanks to the startling cost of Medicare and Social Security’s mandate that “early” retirees live in poverty, my medical expenses will come in well over 7.5% of 2010 income. So I should get a tax refund next April—that can help to cover the insurance and property tax.

Amazingly, $333 plus $642 comes to exactly the amount of a net Social Security payment: $975!

So, if no more unplanned expenses come in this month (har! this is only the 7th!), I should get by. Maybe.

The problem is, I have no idea what my salary will be and can only  make an estimate. It’s a rare day when two successive adjunct paychecks are the same. But if I’m right, there should be enough to make it through October.

November will be another matter. The government is withholding not one but two months’ worth of Medicare payments in November, since obviously if you don’t get paid in October you have nothing for them to engross the Medicare Part B premium from. So that will cut my net income by $111 right off the bat, merry Christmas to one and all. I’ll be buying precious few Christmas presents for M’jihito, and I probably won’t be able to afford the usual Thanksgiving and Christmas feasts.

Speaking of feasts, the choir director informed us last night that we’re expected to show up at the annual fund-raising shindig. The dinner is a hundred bucks! I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about that. I don’t have a hundred bucks to spend on dinner—the $20 donation I made toward the altos’ contribution to the silent auction was more than I could afford, with no Social Security coming in and no real idea what I’m going to earn from my laughable “salary.” Guess I’ll just lay low and pretend I didn’t hear him.

Last year he footed the bill for my dinner. But I really don’t feel comfortable about that and most certainly don’t feel it can happen more than once. Oh well.

Jeez…it’s getting late. Almost 6:00 a.m. Gotta run!