You’d think that, with this economy, I’d be hunkered down in my bunker only spending money on beans, rice and other essential foods and drinks. I’m still not getting warm and fuzzy about the current economic downturn and the prospects for a turnaround. In light of that, you’d think I’d be having zero trouble keeping our spending in check. Well, in reality, I’m still struggling to keep the spending demons away. Maybe it’s because prices on the things I really want are down. Maybe it’s because I’m getting bored. Heck, maybe I’ve just got some sort of neuron receptor damage in my brain.
I am happy to report we’ve done pretty well keeping our spending down for the last month or so. After shelling out all that money for a new Jennair cook top and new couches, it was relatively easy to put the wallet away. I just paid the credit card bill that had both of those items on it and, let me tell you, it was a painful check to write. Between those items and all the other “budgeted” items, the bill was over $4500. Since I refuse to pay interest on credit card debt, I sent the entire balance in via my bill pay. Ugh. At least it’s done.
So, here I sit, reviewing our finances and thinking, “Gosh, things are looking pretty good. Maybe we CAN afford a couple splurges.” I’d love to pick up a cheap flat panel tv for the house. Do we need one? Nope. Should we buy one? Nope. Luckily my common sense is still intact. Since we refinanced the house, we don’t have our first house payment until April 1st. That means we should be able to build up the rest of the money to replace our roof. We actually have the money for it now, but I’d be a little nervous to spend that amount of money out of our emergency fund unless I really had to. By just holding on a little longer, we should have the cash to pay for the roof without dipping in to the emergency fund. We’ll also be getting roughly $1800 back from our old escrow account (from the old mortgage that we just paid off) and I’m receiving a small bonus in the middle of February. I’m definitely feeling a lot better about our overall cash position now.
There are a couple reasons that I’m trying to build our cash position up these days. First of all, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to avoid layoffs by the end of this year. My company just did a large round of layoffs (thousands) but I think they are going to do another one later in the year as they get a better idea of how sales are going to go. The more money I have in the bank, the easier it will be to be unemployed for awhile. If I am able to avoid the layoffs, the larger cash position will be great for picking up some great values in the stock market once the economy seems to be bouncing back.
I’m glad someone thinks like you, it seems sometimes that the whole world is so spendcrazy that they don’t care what the future holds. i know it happens to everyone but your common sense must prevail, we did buy a cheap flat panel for the house, but it was a steal, and our old tv was starting to really show its age so it was kind of needed.