I know that it use to be considered impolite to talk about money, but since it has been on a lot of our minds lately, I thought that maybe you and “Miss Manners” would forgive me for such an oversight.
My next door neighbor, and good friend, told me that my problem was that I just didn’t know how to manage my money, and what I needed to do was make myself a budget.
So, I made a list of all my expenses for the month, dividing those things that aren’t monthly like insurance into monthly payments. And then I subtracted that from my monthly income, and boy, did I ever get a surprise!
There it was in black and white! There was simply too much month at the end of the money! And what is even worse is the fact that judging by my “budget plan” there was simply no way that I could have paid my bills and survived for the past five years!! I saw the answer as number one-I was one of the best money managers in history, or number two-I had had divine intervention. And since I am as prone as any one else to the occasional “impulse buy”, I tend to think it was the latter.
I studied carefully each expense to see if there was some unnecessary ways that I was spending money frivolously.
I’ve really became attached to a safe warm place to sleep at night. And even though heating oil and water are both becoming almost as high as each other, you still have to have them.
I really do like my little car and I can always justify it as a means to work.But you know those “law makers”, you have to have insurance to be able to drive it. And gas to put in it! Really!!!
Maybe I don’t really n-e-e-d cable, but without it, I get no TV reception at all, and I only get basic. Maybe sometime in the future, cable will have to go, but as for now, Jay Leno still has a place in my night life.
My good friend and neighbor, that suggested the budget in the first place, said that I didn’t need to eat. He said that it was just a habit anyway.(I believe that he is secretly in politics). I admit that I do like to eat, but no, Uncle Sam does not pay for my Mountain Dew habit. But since I do not do drugs, I do not smoke or drink, I figured a Mountain Dew was due me. (Sorry for the pun, I couldn’t resist). So, marking groceries off my list is out of the question.
So, after considering all of my expenses, I decided that I couldn’t really do without any of them. So, the only solution was a shorter month. Now, just how could I accomplish that? Maybe we could shorten the days some, skip a day here and there, or maybe just skip leap year altogether! Well, since that does seem a little far fetched, I guess I’ll have to go back to doing what I was doing before the budget plan. I’ll keep turning the shampoo bottle upside down to drain out every single drop, and take it one day at a time, and keep depending on divine intervention!
