• Easing Reynaldo out of life cost money. It's part of being a responsible pet parent. I don't regret trying to keep him as comfortable as possible as long as possible, but that means trips to the vet and the ER, plus the cost of Uber rides.
• Keeping Connie legal cost money. Gotta keep my girl cat legal, and today she got her 3-year rabies shot. In addition, I asked the vet to do bloodwork. She's getting older, too, and I want to keep her healthy. I should have budgeted for this, but I didn't.
• My new Moto G Power phone cost money. I suppose I should have seen this one coming. Wednesday, when I was at the ER with Reynaldo, my phone was very glitchy. I got it to work and kinda forgot about the problems. This morning, it was losing power even as it was charging. By the time Connie and I were ready to leave the vet, it was dead. Fortunately it was a beautiful fall day and we could walk it so I didn't really need my phone. But I'd need it for 1:00 this afternoon, so off to Target I went. I would have preferred to pay the $7/month offered by Consumer Cellular for ordering online, but because I was trying to beat the clock, I had to pay for the whole thing at once. (The Consumer Cellular phone rep helped me get up and running in less than an hour -- their customer service is stellar -- and it is a good phone for the price. I just wasn't prepared to spend this.)
I've got about $900 in my emergency fund, but I don't want to use that. I save that for household expenses -- like appliance repairs or an emergency condo assessment -- where I may need to pay cash. So I put this on my credit card.
It used to be that I looked at purchases like the ones above as why I have credit cards. The closer I get to retirement, the less sanguine I am with carrying debt. On the other hand, as my neighbor told me when I told him my tale of woe about the phone, "We do what we need to do." He's right. I don't see how I had any choice with any of the above. It won't take me that long to pay this off. And it's money that had to be spent.
Unexpected expenses make me have palpitations.
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