January was the longest, suck-iest month EVER!!!!
I swear it produced a year’s worth of BS and I’m over it! WW3, Australian Wildfires, Coronavirus, KOBE!! Look February, you bet not pull a “hold my beer” and try to go and prove you can suck more than January cause no one is in the mood!! #rantover
Any-who…
The heat in my car wasn’t working; perfect timing of course and I had to take it to the shop to see what was going on. Thankfully it was a minor issue, just needed more coolant and after a quick check to see if there was a leak; there wasn’t, I was sent on my way with my savings account $52 dollars lighter. Considering I was expecting the worse and was reluctantly prepared to fork over $300 for what Google said was a potential leak, $52 was a blessing! I was told that I would need to get the axle fixed in the next few months and that’s going to run me $350 so I’ll be saving up for that and getting in fixed in late March.
shop the look:
I started a freelance job a bit after the New Year and I’m trying to figure out how I want to divvy up that extra income. I work just 20 hours per week at $30 per hour so that’s going to bring in an extra $2,400 per month pre-taxed give or take the amount of work I have each week. I don’t add freelance/blogger income into my monthly budget since it fluctuates and can be unstable at times, so I budget that income differently. Besides setting aside money for Uncle Sam, I’m kinda stuck on what to do? I always split freelance income five ways; taxes, business savings, profits, investing back into the business and then my personal income. My personal income would be used to tackle debt but after having a chat with my cousin, I’m torn. She thinks after taxes and savings, I should throw the rest of the money at my student loans since my goal is to pay it off before the year is out. After stewing on that for a few days, I started to question my plan and now I’m lost on what would be the best way to move. And yes I know there is no wrong way to move, but still. At any rate, I will keep you updated with my final decision in next months post.
As promised, here’s my quick money check-in!
Emergency Fund: $250.28 (down $50 due to car repair)
Short Term Savings: 300.59 (up $100 due to monthly deposit)
Long Term Savings: 1,910.47 (no change)
AES: $6,062.28 (down $91)
Last month I talked about wanting to open three additional savings accounts and the plan is to jump-start funding each with my income tax refund; roughly $100 for each account and then looking at my budget to see if I can find a way to fund each on a monthly basis. March will be my last laptop payment for the boy’s birthday gift; I slacked on the payments to my dad right before Christmas, so I think I’ll take the $60 I pay him, split that two ways and look for an extra $30 in my budget to make up the difference for the third account.
Well that’s all I have for now!
And let’s pray February is calm!!
XOXO,
Shanna