My Daily Dollars

It’s Monday, and I’ve got a bit of a money itch this morning.  I just feel grumpy about my finances, unsure about what I spent over the weekend, and adrift about our upcoming financial goals.  Not the best place for a usually cheerful personal finance blogger!  

I suppose that some of my worry comes from the very nutty week we just had on Wall Street.  Of course, right now, my only investment is my 401(k), so I shouldn’t be concerned because I’m for the very long haul.  I’ve decided not to look at my portfolio until December to avoid freaking out.  There’s really no need to worry about it.

Some of my dissatisfaction stems from the way payday fell this month.  I plan weeks to start on the weekend because that’s when I typically need to spend money on groceries and such.  Since we don’t get paid until tomorrow, I used my credit card to float us by for “week one” of October.  I’ll send a payment in tomorrow, but it brought back flashbacks.  In more careless times, I floated by on the credit card for a week or so at the end of the month, always with the justification that I’d pay it all back next month.  Somehow, though, a few things would end up unaccounted for along the way, and the debt would mount.

Finally, I think my extra “snowflake” money for the month sort of melted away.  I’m mad at myself about that because I didn’t want to lose steam transitioning from paying off debt to savings.  I’m worried that I’ll start falling back into old patterns now that the urgency of my credit-card debt is gone.  This month certainly seemed to come out that way.

So, how to recover?  Well, as usual, the first step is just writing about it.  Seeing my worries in print makes them much more manageable!  On top of that, I’ll add three things:

• Take time tomorrow to sort out finances and pay bills.  Sending a payment to my credit card to cover ALL the charges I made over the weekend will help.
• Aim to cut my cash spending in half for the month. If I limit cash spending to $60 for the month, that would allow me to send an extra $60 to savings.  I think limiting my cash may help me be more aware of the rest of my spending this month.
• Take time each day to remember what is really important.  I need to get the focus off spending and worrying about money and on to some other things, including my health.  I’ve been slacking off on working out.  So, making exercise a bigger priority than money will help me realign my thinking.