Happy Independence Day!
Wed, Jul 4, 2012
To all my readers in the US, I hope you have a wonderful 4th of July! As of this moment, I haven’t decided whether my plans include going out of town with my family or staying home to work - my heart says MINI VACATION but my brain says MONEY.
A few random things going on, for those who are nosy interested:
Money. I’m in one of those places where I have a ton of work going on and a ton coming up, but no more money coming in until I finish my current list of projects. So I’m doing my best to minimize spending and catch up as quickly as possible. (I’m still behind thanks to my 2-day internet outage last week.)
Budgeting. It is SO hard to budget without regular paydays. Not to mention the fact that I never know how much I’ll make in a month. My goal is to get way ahead on all my expenses without touching my emergency fund. That way the money I earn in a given month is paying the bills for 2 months in the future, and I’ll be able to budget appropriately. Right now I’m only running about a month ahead and it’s stressing me out.
Parenting. In just over a month, I am going to be the parent of a high schooler. I’m not sure when this happened but it’s completely unfair. Suddenly Jayden sounds like a grown man when he talks, and he gripes and complains and rolls his eyes exactly like I used to at that age. It makes me so sad to realize that he’s going to be 14 next month.
The random cat. Several of you have asked what happened with Specter. Unfortunately, the local humane society does not have live traps and they’re $40 to buy, so I’ve been asking around to find someone who can loan me one. In the meantime, I’ve been putting puppy pads in front of the (blocked) dog door upstairs at night, and I’m pretty sure my dogs hate me for it. Apollo refuses to use it, so he whines all night for me to let him in and out. FML.
Anyway, I’m off to figure out what I’m doing today (probably working) but I’ll have a real post for you guys on Friday. Be safe and have fun tonight!
Have you contacted animal control? They use live traps for animals. My husband is an animal control officer, and contrary to popular belief, they do not put down these animals that they trap. They will turn it over to a local humane society once it is caught. Good luck!
I called them, but I never see the cat during the day. And since it's a cat and not a rabid wolverine, they seemed largely unconcerned.
They may not put the animals down right when caught, but strays are a lot harder to get people to adopt. So they usually get put down by the animal shelter eventually.
As for your plans today, I say have the best of both worlds. Work hard this morning and then head out somewhere later in the day.
And I agree that it is a a lot tougher to budget when your income keeps jumping around. I've had that problem for a long time and as a result I just go with the flow and don't properly budget. I'm sure I waste a lot of money that way though.
Since 5 years we have that, budgeting while having wildly fluctuating incomes. My wife works as a contractor and I invest on the stock-market. I have two budgets, the basic budget for must-buys like basic food, taxes, heating etc. and a budget for nice-to-haves like nicer food, our car etc. We also have two accounts, one for the payments, the daily account, and one for our financial buffer. Every month I move the minimum amount (as determined by the basic budget) plus a bit more if we have it to the daily account. And that has to last till the end of the month. Works for us.
Enjoy your fourth whatever you decide to do. The boat was successfully moved! Hopefully I can get some stuff done around the house this afternoon.
Your cat is kinda freaky. I completely know what you mean about lack of regular pay days.