The Weight of Money

There isn’t anything to talk about when there isn’t any money in the account. For the first time in 2 years, our personal account will have a balance less than $1,000 – maybe even less than $400 if I drag my feet on an account transfer. This freaks me out, to me, it’s the equivalent of being flat out broke. Right now, I’m worried about filling the gas tank and going to the grocery store. Sigh.

One-plus year of not making quite enough has finally caught up with us. We’ve been able to skate by, somehow, each month but that has run out. I need to figure out what I’m going to do about it, but I’m at a loss because I’m out of options. I was hoping for a raise to come in last month and it never did. Last week, we finally got paperwork about a raise (I don’t think it’s going to be back dated, or is that call pro-rated, for a July 1 start as it has in previous years) but it wasn’t anything to be comfortable with. So, what was going to be a slight boost, didn’t come when we really needed it, and as it is, we’re probably only close to breaking even now – which doesn’t make up for the fact that, based on the way our budgeting is supposed to work, our account is facing a $4,000 deficit.

Sigh – I’d love to post more, but lately, it’s been too frustrating to face the numbers – even for me, someone who usually finds comfort in the reality that the only way to solve the problem is to truly understand it. I understand the problem, but don’t see any solutions on the horizon, other than starting busting my butt 24/7 (something thats not remotely possible with a newborn in the house). I need to do something though… maybe posting about it will help get me motivated.

sigh, I get so tired of making calls to credit card companies. Somehow, in the unfortunate coincidence of my bill pay service delaying a reoccuring payment and my credit card company upping the due date — we missed a payment – by a day. This shouldn’t have happened, but it did. Now, the past few weeks I’ve been a bit busy paying attention to our new little girl and no so much our finances, but this one is a big one because we’ve lost our 0% balance transfer if I don’t get this corrected.

Now, it’s not the end of the world, I can always transfer the balance off somewhere else. In fact, that’s the bargaining chip I’ll be using when I call them up because this is the same company that I’ve missed 2 payments with in the past 2-3 years (both times during our move) and while they’ve been understanding each time, I don’t expect the same consideration this time. But I’ve been dragging my feet on making the call, as usual. But I at least have the excuse that every time I think I have a moment to make a phone call, a little angel starts fussing and reminding me that I should give up thinking I have any control over anything in my life.