I love payday...because I can spend time dealing with money, moving it around and paying bills (I may be the only person in the world who actually likes the process of paying bills...of course, I'd rather keep the money!)
So, I was just updating Quicken with hubby's new contribution to his retirement account, transfering money from one account to another so that I can write a check to pay for our foundation repair (which, thankfully only ended up costing $350) and making a contribution to Charlotte's college fund (we alternate months between the girls).
I'm feeling pretty good about this month so far. Obviously, I consider both the foundation repair bill and the college fund contribution to count as necessities.
I do have to admit that everytime I update retirement accounts or college savings accounts, I get a little sick to my stomach. You see, we've put in $950 (before today) for Charlotte's account and it has lost $125...ouch!
So, I have to make myself look at it from this perspective: Better to buy low and sell high! I know it sounds really simple, but I find myself having to work against my emotions. I just want to stop contributing to the funds and build up our emergency fund faster...but I don't really want to, I just don't like seeing the money go down.
Now, if I were a good Dave Ramsey-ite, we would have built up our emergency fund BEFORE we started contributing to retirement and college savings. We made our decision to slow down our savings to do these things, and now I feel like we need to stick with them. Of course, that decision would be reconsidered if anything major happened in our lives.
I am hoping that these 30 days of nothing help us to build up our emergency fund, and get us back on track towards saving, rather than wasting our money, as we so often do.
(Sidenote, we were having a discussion last night while I made dinner...I'll admit it, I was whining a little bit about having to cook and clean up after another meal, so I was trying to put that into perspective by remembering how blessed we are to have a home, a kitchen, food in our fridge and pantry, dishes, a dishwasher, etc. etc. etc...hubby was teasing me and said "you just wish there was someway to have someone cook for you and clean up afterwards" and I pointed out to him that there is such a place, and it is called a restaurant...)
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