Car Repair Update
I have my car back and it only set us back $400 (only, ha!). The partner tossed it on the credit card, per my request, as I figured out where we could pull the money from. At home, I fiddled with the budget and started taking a little here and there. I reduced:
· groceries
· eating out
· transportation
· medical
· household
The grocery and transportation budget seemed the easiest place to cut. We’ve been over budgeting for transportation lately anyways, so I figured we wouldn’t notice a reduction there. The grocery and eating out budget would probably be noticeable, but we have a well stocked pantry and can certainly eat well with what we have. The medical reduction is just delaying a prescription refill until January, something that shouldn’t be a problem.
I told the partner of the plan and reductions and he insisted that we use his December personal money. While this will more than cover the shortfall that my reductions couldn’t meet, I feel guilty about using his personal funds to pay for my car repairs – especially since I’ve already allocated away the majority of my personal funds for December and cannot do the same.
I know I’ll have to use those funds; he’ll refuse to accept any other arrangement, but I will simply find a way to make up the difference in January. This is a good reminder that we could use an emergency fund and we’ll start one next year. In the mean time, we’ll take this in stride without dipping into our house savings and without reducing our debt reduction payments.