January-the Expensive Month

This is the temperature outside from my car dashboard on Sunday morning when I went to Rite-Aid.
It was 3 degrees HIGHER than when Hubs went out at 8 am that same day.....WTF?!?!
Meanwhile in Alaska it was in the 40's?

January is kicking my ass in the expense department this year.
Between what everyone calls Murphy and a new medical insurance coverage year(yes, I'm looking at you high medical deductibles!)January can be expensive at Chez Sluggy.

* We had 14 days of being below freezing here, many of the nights were in the negative single digits(and that's BEFORE wind chill).  This means my electric/heating bill is going to be ridiculously high for January.  Not sure yet what it will turn out to be but it's trending toward $500+.  ick

* Last August, College Boy, had taken my car to work and returned it with a crack in the windshield.  It was small and down at the base of the windshield so didn't hinder my vision while driving said car so I just left it to repair later.
Over the next few months the crack grew and then "spider-ed" and by December the area involved was quite large, but still contained to the lower left side of  the windshield and still didn't impinge on my field of vision for driving.
But it needed to be fixed, so Hubs took it to the local glass place and our deductible for the complete new windshield was $100.
* $100

* Then Hubs car tire kept losing air.  This long subfreezing cold snap in NEPA has just exacerbated the problem.  He took the car up to the local tire/car repair shop and it was deemed that both front tires needed to be replaced.  So he came home with new rubber x two and a nice, new shiny bill for said tires.
* $208

* The day after New Year's we saw a big puddle on the kitchen floor in front of the dishwasher.  Sometimes this happens if someone opens said dishwasher after starting it(a bunch of water falls out when you open the door).  It was discovered that no one had opened said door while the dishwasher was cycling so it was thought something was leaking.  After another running of the dishwasher, just to make sure it wasn't just someone opening the door mid-cycle, it make another nice puddle.  Conclusion-the dishwasher needs a new gasket, is rusted out somewhere or ?  Whether it's a repair issue or a replacement issue is still to be determined.  Either way it's going to cost $$.
Personally, I am in no hurry to repair/replace the appliance and since Hubs is the kitchen cleaner-upper/dishwasher as long as he will hand wash the dishes I am good with being in status quo mode on this one.  I won't be calling a repairman and I'll wait for Hubs to get fed up doing dishes by hand.  This should buy us some time before we had to dump money into a repair or replacement.
* No $ spent(for now)

* With a new year for the medical insurance and a $3K deductible to pay before seeing any benefits on visits, tests or meds I had to refill a pricey Rx.  I try to time refills/visits/tests so we do all we can by December 31st but this maintenance drug comes up early each month unfortunately.
It's funny that the druggist calls the house in January to break the news that I owe hundreds of $s for the script every year and the cashier at the pharmacy counter also prepares me that I'll owe big bucks for it.  I've been on this drug for years now so I know what's coming but they don't remember and handle me with kid gloves. lolz  I'll be so glad when our deductible is met for the year......
* $306 for 1 month's worth of 1 drug

I am behind for the year already.  I still need to close out the December, Christmas and 2017 spending books.  It just seems like I have so much to deal with in January from the previous month/year.
I'll get there if I put up multiple postings per day for awhile.....if I can find the time to write them all. lolz


Sluggy

Living Your Financial Life Responding or Reacting

As I start adding all the numbers for the month,  it looks like February will be a good savings month for us this year.
I am still waiting for the interest to post on our accounts but as of now we are over $2K saved out of our regular income.  And that's on a reduced income for the month since part of February ]was with disability pay.  Some substantial bills were down in February from January's amounts....water, electric and groceries.  Even with a lower paycheck we we still have "leftover" pay.

But March is not going to be so good for savings as we hit our $3K medical high deductible for the year by February 10th due to expensive prescriptions and the Daughter had her back injections on that date.  And Hubs had another eye injection late January too so we have paid/been billed OOP $3K + at this point for all medical charges to date.

Remember the $1690.34 I had saved in December 2016 but reserved to put toward medical in 2017?
$920.73 was spent this month toward medical bills, so there is $769.61 left to put toward medical bills in March.
At this date we have $1865.98 in medical charges that haven't been billed yet(but have been submitted to insurance so I have EOBs on them). The bills for these will be arriving in March.  After I apply that $920.73 I need to find $1096.37 more in our March income to cover these bills.

Usually I'd just pay irregular bills like these medical ones as income comes in.
But we also have property taxes due the end of March(I pay them early to get the discount on them.  I could wait and pay more later.).

Between this total of $2468.22 in irregular bills that will be due in March AND what I have estimated our normal/regular bills will come to for March applied against the estimated regular income in March it's going to cut things very close.   "Less than $200 between income and outgo for March" close.

So I am going to hold back about $500 of the leftover income that would go into the Savings Challenge for February to use toward irregular bills in March.

I know that if I pay the bills now or later really doesn't matter for us.  I could just take the Feb. excess to savings now and then maybe go negative for March, or hold back $500 for Feb. so we don't go negative in savings for March.  It would be just a temporary setback on paper vs. juggling the money for a bit.

It's not like it will mean having to pay interest or having overdraft fees because we went negative in the bank accounts because we have a cushion of extra cash in those accounts anyway.  I can handily cover any overages in our accounts.

Hubs doesn't get why I get so worked up and track everything so closely. This coming from the man who NEVER balanced an account before we got married and use to write checks for cups of coffee at school. ;-)

I just like to know where everything stands at any given time.
OCD, anal retentive?  Maybe.

I just like the way it feels month to month when I can cash flow things and not have to pull from savings for bills one month and then replenish those accounts the following month.
Just thinking ahead I can see where trouble might happen and deal with it rather than reacting to what life throws at me.
I guess it's a difference between RESPONDING to life events rather than having to REACT to life events?

Peace of mind maybe.
My financial life flowing smoothly.....not three steps forward, one step back.
Are you that way too?

Most people live a life of reaction.  Reacting to crises, waiting for something to happen and then dealing with it.  Life runs smoothly for a bit longer until the next crisis.....and the next and the next.

I find this type of living exhausting.  Being organized no matter the arena(your job, your money, your home, etc.)makes your life run smoother.

Maybe THIS POST or THIS ONE might explain what I am talking about better.

Overall, everything will get paid and savings will happen at Chez Sluggy.
And I'll continue to respond with my money and not react to it.

Sluggy