I’m not so sure that I’m liking the way that this year is starting. It seems that for me, the way the year starts is the way the year goes. If that’s the case, I can kiss my budget good bye for the entire year.
In 2015, I paid off a couple credit cards and was doing okay. I only had a couple hundred dollars left to pay on one card and a hundred dollars left on another. The rest were completely paid off. I was feeling pretty good about my progress but I forgot one thing. I forgot to save up my emergency fund first before paying off my credit cards.
Right at the end of November, a roofer that I had contacted a few months earlier, decided it was a good time to come to do a repair on my roof. I have a feeling that his wife decided that they needed some money for Christmas presents so she told him to get over to my house to work on my roof. There went all the money that I had saved for Christmas presents. I rearranged my budget and still had high hopes of cash flowing my way through Christmas.
A week or two later, in mid-December, my horse got sick. Really sick. A single vet visit didn’t do the trick. So we had to haul him to an equine hospital 75 miles away where he had to spend the night and they had to run blood tests. As you can imagine, that wasn’t a cheap thing to do. Once he was back home, I had to have the vet come back once more to work on his teeth. All in all, the total cost ended up being a little over $1,000 (most of which I had to finance). If I would have had my emergency fund in place, it would have caused minimal damage but unfortunately, I didn’t.
So, I am starting 2016 heavily in debt and with some big car troubles. I really hope that’s not how the rest of the year goes. I plan to start over now but this time, I will make a change and start with the emergency fund. I have learned my lesson and see how that one little thing would have made a huge difference.
When the roofing repair came up, if my emergency fund would have been in place, I could have paid for it out of there. My Christmas fund would have still been intact and none of the presents would have been paid for with a credit card. The remaining $500 from the emergency fund could have then been used for Flash’s trip to the equine hospital. I probably still would have had to finance part of the vet bills but it wouldn’t have been nearly as much and I could have recovered much quicker.
I’m anxious to get back on track. I know it’s going to add some more months to my plan but if I do it right this time, I’ll get there.
I know this feeling very well – when you have a momentum and saving and paying debt back in a way that makes you proud and happy; and then an unexpected expense happens and you feel like starting from the beginning again, which is frustrating.. I think there is nothing much to do, but try to see the best out of these unexpected expenses; like your roof is repaired now, right before the winter which is awesome; it will help protect you and your home and prevent further damage.. Also your horse is important to you and you have done good by seeking medical help and helping get rid of his pain… that is such a great thing to do – you must be proud of yourself…
Thank you for always helping me see the bright side of things! I am very thankful that I had the money when the roofer came, even though it was unexpected, because there was water pouring in the side of my house, causing so much damage. And if I hadn’t paid off those credit cards already, my credit wouldn’t have been good enough to get the financing I needed to help my horse. Those are all great things that happened because of the effort that I have already been putting in and I can do it again!!