Am I the only one who hates the end of the month? Part of my problem is that I get paid bi-weekly, but budget monthly. Since Friday I’ve had the paycheck for the first half of March’s expenses. I’m tempted to put in a big loan payment, but I can’t really track how I’m doing comparatively from month to month if I don’t hold on to those payments. It also takes what seems like forever for my law school loans to post the bill each month. If I pay it before the bill posts, it will still say I have a payment due, and while I could pay extra on it, if rather concentrate on some of the other loans now.
I do have some budgeting plans for March. I have some reimbursable expenses in my February tracking, and it’s making it look like I spent $900 in my “everything else” category. If I’m being honest though I did spend a lot on “other” this month–$243 for a doctor’s visit in November*, $150+ on baby gifts, and some concert tickets for the summer. I also took out $100 to pay for dry cleaning and tailoring expenses, but I’m pretty sure only about $50 of that was spent there, and I’m not really sure where the rest of it went. I’m getting my hair done next month, but other than that, I’m going to try to eliminate “other” expenses, at least for one month. We’ll see how it goes.
* I have a high deductible health insurance plan, and now have a health savings account that I put $75 each paycheck (not tracked in my net worth). That one doctor’s appointment cost me about $450 in doctor and lab fees! It was the first time I’d gone to the doctor for something other than a physical in years (since high school?), and I don’t plan on doing it again any time soon, but I guess you can’t really plan for that–except my putting money into your HSA. Because the appointment was with my old plan I couldn’t use my HSA, but it never expires so I’m happy to save it for a rainy (sick) day.