Finance Fridays: Sometimes You Have to Change the Plan
You heard me say we were paying off the car in August.
You heard me say we were paying off the car in September.
Guess what?
You get a gold star! We’re not paying off the car. A $1700 hit on the budget is just a teensy bit too big in addition to topping off the $1000 emergency fund.
That decision was made before GG went into the hospital, Randy took a day off work, and we ate out twice, totally trashing the “eating out” line item on our budget. We also ordered Chinese food last night. I’m sorry, I know it sounds lazy and crappy, but I’m so worn out from the drama of the hospital and my GG (who is still in the hospital but spending all her time complaining and cussing – a clear indication she is now okay to go home) that I can’t lift a finger.
I did about four hours of work last night and thought I’d collapse halfway through. I’m exhausted.
So instead of doing the car payoff, we’ve decided to do the debt snowball the way it’s supposed to be done, from lowest debt to highest. If you didn’t get it when it was originally posted, here is the link for my simple excel Budget Template Spreadsheet if you want to download and play along at home.
Changing the plan has hurt my heart just a little, because I really want that car to be paid off. Maybe it’s because over the last five years it has been the most difficult bill to pay consistently. Maybe it’s because they have the most consistently annoying bill collectors. Not even a human, just a computer that calls four times a day when you’re late to let you know in a pleasant, computerized voice that you are late with your car payment.
The other bills (mostly medical) are all tacked on my bulletin board, and it will take $1017 to clear them out completely. Then we can tear six pieces of paper off of the bulletin board and shred, burn, or otherwise destroy them because they will never darken my phone again.
But I can’t do that until I figure out how much more gas was used going to the hospital, how much, exactly, was spent eating out during hospital day and last night, and where the budget currently stands.
Because the emergency fund comes first, so that if something happens to the car, or to a child….we can cover it.
I sometimes wonder what it’s like for people that have credit cards. Knowing that if something big comes up it can just be swiped and taken care of. It seems like it would be a comfort, but I hear it is a false comfort. I don’t know either way.
Do you make changes to your budget often? Do you take those changes in stride or does it make you feel, you know, a little down because it couldn’t be the way you wanted it when you first wrote it down? (I always feel like I failed just a little when things don’t go perfectly, but that’s my way with most things, so I’m hoping you aren’t like that LOL)
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4 Responses to “Finance Fridays: Sometimes You Have to Change the Plan”
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Yep – I’m a Joiner!
A change in plan is not a failure. Failing to change plans when required, that is a failure.
Having done the “no credit whatsoever!” and the “credit is our friend” route, Jason and I have found that we function best with one charge card, an AmEx. We pay it off in full each month, but if for some reason (emergency or the like) we can’t, we can pay interest on the balance until we get caught up.
It works really really well for us, and we get “points” which we turn in for gift cards for dining out.
It also helps us manage our finances better. We never bounce a check anymore, because all “day to day” expenses (read: non-recurring bills) go on the card, and we can see at the end of each month how we’ve done.
Actually, we look it up online every week, and can see how well (or not well) we’ve done.
Sorry for the novel. eek.
Girl, please!
You know I’m super wordy
I caught your comment right away because I messed up my headline in the teaplate and am trying to fix it. I also changed the color of all my links to red. Ick.
Thanks for the input, it really helps. Because we’re still trying to find the way we like best that we can turn into our long-term habit. I have dreams of having auto-withdrawl of the monthly bills. Never having to worry and just logging into the bank once a month and double checking that everything is awesome-tastic.
We got caught up in the credit card trap and now we may be looking at bankruptcy. It is not pretty and you are so lucky you stay away. We are down to one credit card for each of us, mu husband and I. We are going to try and get caught up on the others, but it doesn’t look promising.
I am going to use your excel sheet. I told my husband last night that we need to start a budget. We have a disabled child and I can’t work outside the house right now, so every penny counts!
You are not a failure. No financial plan is set in stone. Tweaking your budget is good because when it comes to money and bills, it’s an ever changing world!
Aw Cindi – that is superbunk! If you need help walking through the budget or anything, let me know and I’ll call you or you can call me or whatever. I’d be happy to help you, cause until recently we had so much less income than we had bills it wasn’t even funny.
Do you listen to Dave Ramsey? (www.daveramsey.com) he’s a pretty helpful dude. Don’t buy anything, you can find all his stuff online here and there for free, and it might get you in a position to get your stuff paid off or down or make it more manageable.
Again, let me know if there’s anything I can do to help!