Saturday, September 25, 2021

September is the cruelest month

... or at least the most expensive. So far this month, I've spent about $900 I hadn't intended to.

•  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.

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1 comment:

  1. Unexpected expenses make me have palpitations.

    ReplyDelete

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