Odds and ends

SmartyPig lowered their rate, from 2.15% to 1.75%. This is still above and beyond what anyone else is offering, but I am disappointed nonetheless.

I am currently negotiating my rent. My lease is up next month and I am trying to get my monthly expenses lowered. I haven't yet discussed my rent on this blog (I will), but it is appallingly expensive to live alone in Los Angeles, so I can use all the help I can get. Send good thoughts and well wishes my way, universe.

I have already come up against a few unexpected expenses this month; a wedding present, and a Labor Day cookout where I was asked to contribute a 12-pack of beer. All told, almost $40 of atypical expenses. I am also in need of a haircut, which isn't normally part of my monthly budget. In LA, a woman's haircut runs around $50-$100. Ridiculous. So I go to SuperCuts, where I pay $21 plus tip. (Once a year I go to a good stylist to give me excellent layers for my SuperCuts stylist to copy at each trim.) I won't be winning any modeling competitions soon, but frugality has its costs.

Happy weekend!! Fall is coming to LA, and it makes me positively giddy!

Checking account cushion?

How much of a cushion do you keep in your checking account?  This is something I struggle with, as my conservative side definitely acknowledges the safety and security that comes from having money instantly available. (And a checking account is instant enough for me; I don't really buy into the idea that I should have a couple hundred dollar bills stashed in a coffee can.)

However, I also prefer to have my money working for me, in the form of gathering interest in my savings account or reducing interest charges on my credit card. Return for the money is rather important to me, given that I have so little discretionary income with which to bring my net worth out of the red.

To this end, I have only about $150 cushioning my checking account. And honestly, I only keep it this high because my $118 car insurance automatically debits from my checking account on the 16th each month and I don't want to risk my mid-month paycheck not being there to cover it.

So, am I insane, walking a tightrope without a net?

End of the month

My budget and I are close. Really, really close. We know each other intimately. Yet at the end of each month, I pull away. I dread visiting my Excel spreadsheet and let receipts pile up in my wallet. Sometimes I won't open the document for days on end.

This only happens in the last few days of each month. The rest of the time, opening my budget document is one of the first things I do after dinner. I use the spreadsheet to record literally every dime that comes in and goes out. I add up my savings contributions, my credit card payments, my grocery costs, and the money I spend on social activities (last month I ate out once and went out for cocktails once; more on my lameness in another post).

I relish the freshness of a blank slate at the start of each month. I input my regular expenses in advance and then play with my discretionary income. What if I put this much toward AMEX? How about I throw this amount into my emergency fund and then this little bit into my LASIK repayment account? 

Even if I haven't spent any money that day, I will almost always open my Excel spreadsheet at night. Sometimes I'll play with the figures, and other times I'll simply look at the data. Yes, I may be obsessed, but that's why I have this blog: my personal finance outlet.

But at the end of the month, I dread seeing a negative number. For instance, during the month of August, I decided to lower the cushion in my checking account and move an extra $80 into the emergency fund (my checking account cushion torment is another post entirely). However, I tracked this in my monthly budget, meaning even if I only spent exactly what I made, I would come out $80 short. So when I found myself in the hole $15 I shut down. The $50 of expenses I accumulated in the final week of August were evidenced on receipts that I kept in my wallet but refused to enter into my spreadsheet.

Irrational and silly, yes. But dangerous as well. I had a vague grasp of the implications of my spending on my budget, but I didn't have the accountability that my daily data entry normally afforded me. I thought I knew where I stood, but I didn't have a concrete understanding of my finances. 

What strikes me as especially funny about this is that the end-of-the-month distance I had from my financial picture was exactly the relationship I'd always had with my money. I knew it came in, I knew it went out, and I knew that I never overdrew my account or bounced a check. But beyond that, I was pretty clueless. And I certainly wasn't worrying about only paying minimums on my credit cards. Ah, to go back in time and slap myself....

So, according to my August budget, I spent more than I made. The negative number in my "leftover" column taunts me. Every month I dream of finding a positive digit in that column, after I've already made one extra credit card payment or sent another $50 into my Ireland savings account.

Sadly, this rarely happens. Because while I believe in "paying myself first" in the form of doling out my credit card payments and savings deposits at the start of each month, I also cannot completely predict my life. If I want to try a great new recipe and need some fresh veggies or chicken to do it, I will probably go to the grocery store. If an old friend comes into town and wants to meet for brunch (like the other day) I won't turn her down.

Apparently, I'm not perfect or infallible, as much as I may claim otherwise.