It’s taken me a long time to write this post; I felt like I had fallen off the wagon and had the wheels run over me. I know better than what the numbers show. I know I can do more to curb my spending habits than what I am doing, but dangit, sometimes I just don’t want to. When I’m stressed, all the pressures of what I am dealing with at work and/or home come together and it is hard to be disciplined enough to say “don’t be selfish and stay focused on your goals.”
This is part of the journey in getting your financial house in order. It’s not always pretty, and sometimes it feels like you are spinning your wheels and not making any progress. But you shouldn’t beat yourself up too bad when these moments occur, and I won’t do that here. To be fair, I did catch the bug and have to rest a lot. I also actively stayed out of the craft stores, ignored some really great Etsy sales, and just made notes of things I wanted to look into purchasing later. Didn’t quite make a no-spend month, but definitely spent less. I’ll take that as a win.
Since I’m behind but still want to keep it short, I present to you both January paycheck reviews:
Here’s the problem when you don’t go ahead and immediately review your expenses – it is hard to remember why you took some of the actions you did.
I think in having to pay Silver Lake (no late fees!) I shorted some of my other bills, which contributes to the faux overage of $190.84. Also, my personal and hobby categories are up because I bought hard-to-find sticker books for some of my fellow planner babes, and I got a little excited and overpaid for a massage since I had some time and a few coins in my pocket.
The massage did feel great though – it made me long for a proper one!
This paycheck review is a little more in line with how things are supposed to go: my actual and paid columns on my bills are closer to each other (I think I only made a partial payment on the gas bill anticipating needing it for something), and my variable expenses are a nice, respectable $266.
And even though I started out with this paycheck expecting to be short over $200, it ended up not being that bad. I have been working to increase my income a bit, and working on spending less.
This journey will have ups and downs. Yours may not be as bad as mine, or may be worse. It doesn’t matter; our circumstances are different.
Just hang on.