The end of the month money mess

Well, it’s the end of our financial month, and unsurprisingly, things are all at sixes and sevens.

Each month I have to figure out and set up finances for 30 days. That includes:

• Setting aside enough for our day-to-day money
• Keeping back enough for recurring debits (IRA, life insurance, etc)
• Transfers to nine of our Capital One 360 accounts for various savings goals
• The credit card payment

That last one is more confusing than it sounds. I have to account for the various weekly payments we’ve made and transfer money in from Capital One 360 accounts if we charged anything that should come out of our fun money or vacation fund or whatever.

Oh, and September meant I was also dealing with quarterly taxes. That meant yet more transfers because I keep our personal tax funds in a Capital One 360 account.

All of this while preparing for FinCon. And of course, the hospital stay (and inattention to finances for the week or so afterward) probably didn’t help matters either.

Point is, we have a something of a money mess on our hands.

It could be worse, for sure. We could be short for the month. Instead, we once again have more than we should. But unlike last time, there are no pending charges to account for. That I know of, anyway.

There are a couple of reasons that I can think of for some of the extra funds. The post-hospital inattention means I forgot to make one of the weekly credit card payments. Also, we spent a bit less this month on Tim’s medication than expected. Plus I spent a puke-y week at FinCon not really eating, which meant no frozen meals or protein bars consumed. And finally there are the meals Mom cooked while she was here.

Still, those account for, at best, half of the “extra” money. Which leaves a few hundred unaccountably in our account.

Hopefully, it just means that my rushing around caused a math error in our favor. Because the alternative is that I’ve forgotten something vital. (Already checked the mortgage and credit card. The payments went through. And I triple checked the credit card to make sure we’d paid the full amount due. We did.)

But either way, what can I do? Nothing.

If it’s a math error, then it’s good news and it means savings will go up. And if I have forgotten something… Well, there’s nothing to be done about it. I’ll get an alert soon enough, and I’ll just have to fix it then.

Or so I tell myself as the panic rises.

Instead, I’ll focus on healing and getting back to more regular blogging. There have been so many obstacles in the past five or six months: Tim’s depression, then my weariness from that, then getting ready for FinCon, then being in the hospital, then recuperating. So it’s understandable but still durn annoying.

I want to get back on track. Routine makes me feel and function better.

In that vein, we’ve loaded up on protein bars and a few frozen meals. (Now I just have to make myself eat the frozen meals. Blah.)

I’m working on getting back into a good sleep rhythm. It’s been pretty off lately. It takes me forever to fall asleep — like, two hours — and for a while I was waking up at 4 a.m. for another hour or two. Whee.

I got in bed at 9 p.m. last night — a full hour and a half early — which means I was asleep by 11:30, thereby netting me an acceptable amount of sleep. If I can do that again tonight, I’ll start easing back into exercising. The activity is good for my sleep, eating habits, etc.

Plus a bit more weight loss wouldn’t be a bad thing — especially since we actually have a Halloween party to go to this year.

The problem is that the couple of costumes I have are from when I was 30 lbs heavier. So they’re no-gos. So I’m just going to pull out an old dress I bought for a salsa-dancing themed party years ago. I’ll stick a flower in my hair and be, I dunno, a salsa/Spanish-y dancer type person. Unless I get inspired for another affordable costume that’s vaguely flattering.

Tim found a $5 black-suit Spiderman mask. He’s going to pair it with a Venom full-zip hoodie he already has plus some dark pants. It’s a Spiderman story line (ish), and it’s cheap so I’m happy.

The important thing is that we’ll be at a party, socializing for a change. And booze. Let’s not forget the booze.

What are your Halloween plans? Anyone have some Ambien?