Sunday, July 29, 2007

Money Management

You'd think with a single income, money management would be a big challenge for me. Sometimes things are a little tighter than I'd like, but often it's a simple matter of math. When I'm done with my expenses for the month the money is gone, so there's not really anything left over to worry about budgeting.
This is the reason I have rules about windfalls. The first rule of windfalls is that a big chunk of it has to go into savings. That way, when a minor disaster occurs, I've got some funds available. Then I put the rest towards a project of appropriate size. These are the kinds of projects that sit around on a waiting list until I have the money.
Using this method, I feel I have the best of both worlds. I have some money in savings, that's untouchable unless something in my home or my body needs repairs. But I also get to do something tangible that holds off the feelings of deprivation for a while.
However, I think I'm going to try something different. I have a little bit of money waiting for me to decide what to do with it. I've already put some of it into savings. Truthfully, this is not the kind of money that would allow me to do something substantial like make over a room in the house. So rather than spending it all at once, I think it might be fun to see how long I can make it last. It's kind of nice to have a few extra bucks for little things that come up each week. Instead of picking one big project to spend it on, I'm going to enjoy getting a number of the "little things" on my list week after week. I wonder if I can make this last until the next windfall.

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