Lordie! So far am I over this month’s budget, I’ve given up trying to restrain the spending. As usual when I decide to indulge myself early in the budget cycle with a sorta expensive but affordable purchase, every damnfool thing that costs money to fix has popped up or gone wrong.
To start with, I bought the chair and gaudy pillows to go with ($334)
Then the locksmith showed up and miraculously fixed the museum-quality antique lock at the downtown house ($50); the pool went on the fritz ($135); I ran out of pool shock treatment chemicals ($53), the air conditioning company called to inquire after payment of a bill racked up last March for routine annual maintenance, which I mistakenly thought they’d charged on AMEX then and so filed and forgot ($120); Costco blindsided me with a demand for membership renewal ($53); we installed gutters on the downtown house ($353); and FINALLY after a year of stubbornly offering ugly Bermuda shorts and uglier pedal-pushers, Costco came forth with the style of summer shorts I love and that evidently has gone out of fashion ($56 for three pair).
The upshot of these frolics: $702.51 worth of red ink.
All is not lost, though.
Last month, I fronted my S-corporation, The Copyeditor’s Desk, $531 in start-up costs and office supplies, which I put on the card and paid out of my cash flow. Since then, the corporation has earned enough to cover those expenses. As it develops, with careful bookkeeping, you’re alllowed have the corporation repay its debt to you. So, CE Desk will cover about $530 of this month’s shortfall.
That brings the overrun down to a manageable $353.There’s plenty in the Indulgences & Surprise Expenses savings account to cover this.
Meanwhile, M’hijito said he’d pay half the gutter cost, erasing another $176 of red ink, bringing the overerun down to a mere $177. It’s not really necessary for him to do that, though, since a) I didn’t expect it and b) he keeps insisting on paying my bill every single time we go out to eat. By now he’s easily forked over more than $177 in free sandwiches, breakfast platters, tacos, sushi, and beer.
Today is the 14th. Because my budget cycle is set up to coincide with the AMEX billing cycle, it ends on the 20th. I actually have all the food, gas, and supplies I need to tide me over for another seven days, and so in principle I could do a no-buy week to stanch the flow of red. Experiences shows that’s karmically risky, though—the last time I tried that stunt, the dog died, expensively.
Okay, okay, I know: superstitious! But truly, a $702 personal budget overrun passeth all understanding. So instead of vowing not to part with another penny between now and the 20th, I’m just gunna lay low here. Spend normally. Maybe not spend very much. But no no-spend weeks. Maybe Lady Karma won’t notice…
All that stuff is non-recurring. Your little dog will be safe, I’m sure. We always spend a lot more in the summer because we get to all the project we’ve been putting off.
@ frugalscholar: True. Right now I’m spending more because I’d like to get several major, expensive projects done while I still have a salary.