Four random thoughts that I am not quite ready to flesh out into their own posts.
Working 90%?
I’m back in the office. I’m not quite feeling relaxed with my 0.9 FTE load, probably because I’m catching up from my time in the hospital.
Looking on the bright side: though I am bringing more work home, I can do it on the porch. I’m pretty happy we installed a signal booster for the wireless modem so I can work outside.
Where did the money go?
I worked on paying the bills and balancing the check book today.
This is the first month we don’t have a mortgage payment (more on that next week month!), but somehow there isn’t much left over to put into savings.
We have a few large purchases, including 6 months of insurance and registration for WCICON, which explains where some of the money went. But still, we have to make sure the “pay raise” doesn’t all disappear.
Money buckets
Related to this, is the question of buckets–mental or otherwise–for our money.
We have a “travel” account, from which plane tickets, hotels, and meeting fees should be paid. I had been planning to add to it with the extra money available once we are no longer paying for a mortgage.
If we don’t have lots of money left over because of a large bill for WCICON, should I swap around money? XX from the travel account to pay for the credit card bill, then put YY back into the travel account as part of our monthly savings?
It all seems too much today. I’m just paying the credit card and saying we don’t have much left over money this month.
The credit Card game
I am starting to think about shooting for credit card bonuses. We managed to get the bonus for my husband’s card, which will likely turn into a round trip to Europe next year.
Since we will likely have to get a new central air conditioner this year, I could console myself about the price by thinking of all the bonus points we can earn if we can pay for the system and installation that way.
Only I’m a little worried about whether it will work: we have to get the cards in time, have the bill come due during the right time, and (firstly) make sure we can pay for the thing with credit.
We’ll see if this pans out. For now, the A/C is working, thank goodness.
What’s up with you?