pcooley
3-28-14, 10:47am
I'm not looking for advice; it's just been a bad month. With summer coming up, the family has been pushing me about summer camp. My daughter had applied to Camp Rising Sun, an invitation only leadership camp in the Hudson River Valley that pays for kids from around the world to come out and attend for the seven weeks. She was interviewed, but then received word that she was put on the wait list. (She thinks that it is because we don't "represent the culture of our area" well enough being academic transplants that are into Buddhism rather than local Catholics. (We think it may be because her issue of choice to write about was LGBT issues rather than world peace, or global warming, but we'll never really know)).
In order to pay for some camp, I had to stop paying more on the mortgage. That's OK, but my original plan to pay for summer camp was to have the house paid for by this time, but we kept going over budget on groceries. Now our mortgage is stalled at around $3000. I realize that is really excellent, but I'm far off the plan, and it's feeling like it's taking forever. I've been lax about an emergency fund because I've been thinking if I just pay off the mortgage, I'll be able to build the emergency fund back up quickly. Because of our tax bill, our emergency fund went from $1000 to $200. As my grandmother would say, that's not even a spit in the bucket.
My wife really wanted my son to go to a specific camp, so in a snit, I enrolled him, but that left us with $200 in checking. Groceries last week took a lot of that.
Then our cat disappeared. He's the only pet I really, really love - not being a dog person. Dogs don't disappear as readily as cats.
Then we found out that the Scout camp the kids want to go to will cost around $600. We still owe $400 for the trip to Germany my daughter is taking with her German class, and the other camp she wants to go to cost $550. I think we can swing all that barely, but it makes things really tight, and when things get tight, I get stressed out, (being, as everyone on the board knows, the only person in this family that really obsesses over the budget). (I'll say, "We have $75 in the budget for groceries this week! We can do this!" Then my wife says, "don't forget to get everything on the list.") I keep saying there isn't enough money for camp, but my wife rightly points out that otherwise, all our son will do is watch movies on Netflix while we're at work. Summer is so frustrating.
Edited to add: I forgot - my daughter has also won the regional National History Day competition. Her teacher thinks she will also win the state competition. (Yaaaay her!) But the cost to go to the national competition is $750. They want a commitment now. We already have plane tickets to Norfolk the following week to go to a family reunion of my wife's family on the Outer Banks. We could fly her direct to her grandmother's in D.C. for $200 on Southwest, which is cheaper than changing her current airline ticket. However, that leaves me paranoid about not using her initial outbound ticket. I've heard that some airlines penalize you for only using one leg of a roundtrip ticket, and I've heard that if you're not on your outbound flight, they will cancel your return flight. I contacted "Delta Assist" on Twitter to see if her unused outbound flight would be a problem, and they tweeted back that as long as we have a boarding pass, it won't be a problem, but I'm wary of that advice.
In the midst of all the worry about money and the summer, I was giving my daughter a ride to school on my Vespa, and a dog charged out at us directly in front of the scooter. Either the owner was walking it off leash, or it pulled out of her hands. I slammed on the brakes but still hit the dog. I felt terrible. I went over to see what I could do, but being on a scooter, I couldn't exactly throw the dog on the back with my daughter and get her to a vet. I asked the owner if she needed to borrow my cell phone. She said she had her own cell phone, but there was no one at home to call. She decided to call someone she worked with, and at that point, her dog started to limp off up the hill, and she had to chase it, and she waved us on. She admitted it was her fault. I wanted to get her number so I could check on her dog, but I didn't want her to think that I was going to come after her for my repair bill. (My wife was angry at me for not demanding that she pay for the repairs, but even though, technically, it was her fault, it was still an accident, and her beloved pet had just been run over, and I'm sure her vet bill is going to be higher than my repair bill, and we're all struggling financially). The dog had cuts on her head, and I think her leg may have been broken. The accident shattered the headlight and fender of my scooter. I have a $500 deductible for repairs. I'm sure it's going to cost at least that much. I'm just glad the insurance will cover the rest. I'm still worried about the dog. I'm glad we stayed upright and my daughter was not hurt. I wish we could just go back to being a bicycle family, but the charter school is too far away, and the school near our house is not so good.
So, at the end of this month, when I thought the mortgage would be paid off, I find myself having to do some financial juggling to keep all the balls in the air. My lovely cat is missing, and I've run over a dog and broken my scooter.
April has to be better, right?
In order to pay for some camp, I had to stop paying more on the mortgage. That's OK, but my original plan to pay for summer camp was to have the house paid for by this time, but we kept going over budget on groceries. Now our mortgage is stalled at around $3000. I realize that is really excellent, but I'm far off the plan, and it's feeling like it's taking forever. I've been lax about an emergency fund because I've been thinking if I just pay off the mortgage, I'll be able to build the emergency fund back up quickly. Because of our tax bill, our emergency fund went from $1000 to $200. As my grandmother would say, that's not even a spit in the bucket.
My wife really wanted my son to go to a specific camp, so in a snit, I enrolled him, but that left us with $200 in checking. Groceries last week took a lot of that.
Then our cat disappeared. He's the only pet I really, really love - not being a dog person. Dogs don't disappear as readily as cats.
Then we found out that the Scout camp the kids want to go to will cost around $600. We still owe $400 for the trip to Germany my daughter is taking with her German class, and the other camp she wants to go to cost $550. I think we can swing all that barely, but it makes things really tight, and when things get tight, I get stressed out, (being, as everyone on the board knows, the only person in this family that really obsesses over the budget). (I'll say, "We have $75 in the budget for groceries this week! We can do this!" Then my wife says, "don't forget to get everything on the list.") I keep saying there isn't enough money for camp, but my wife rightly points out that otherwise, all our son will do is watch movies on Netflix while we're at work. Summer is so frustrating.
Edited to add: I forgot - my daughter has also won the regional National History Day competition. Her teacher thinks she will also win the state competition. (Yaaaay her!) But the cost to go to the national competition is $750. They want a commitment now. We already have plane tickets to Norfolk the following week to go to a family reunion of my wife's family on the Outer Banks. We could fly her direct to her grandmother's in D.C. for $200 on Southwest, which is cheaper than changing her current airline ticket. However, that leaves me paranoid about not using her initial outbound ticket. I've heard that some airlines penalize you for only using one leg of a roundtrip ticket, and I've heard that if you're not on your outbound flight, they will cancel your return flight. I contacted "Delta Assist" on Twitter to see if her unused outbound flight would be a problem, and they tweeted back that as long as we have a boarding pass, it won't be a problem, but I'm wary of that advice.
In the midst of all the worry about money and the summer, I was giving my daughter a ride to school on my Vespa, and a dog charged out at us directly in front of the scooter. Either the owner was walking it off leash, or it pulled out of her hands. I slammed on the brakes but still hit the dog. I felt terrible. I went over to see what I could do, but being on a scooter, I couldn't exactly throw the dog on the back with my daughter and get her to a vet. I asked the owner if she needed to borrow my cell phone. She said she had her own cell phone, but there was no one at home to call. She decided to call someone she worked with, and at that point, her dog started to limp off up the hill, and she had to chase it, and she waved us on. She admitted it was her fault. I wanted to get her number so I could check on her dog, but I didn't want her to think that I was going to come after her for my repair bill. (My wife was angry at me for not demanding that she pay for the repairs, but even though, technically, it was her fault, it was still an accident, and her beloved pet had just been run over, and I'm sure her vet bill is going to be higher than my repair bill, and we're all struggling financially). The dog had cuts on her head, and I think her leg may have been broken. The accident shattered the headlight and fender of my scooter. I have a $500 deductible for repairs. I'm sure it's going to cost at least that much. I'm just glad the insurance will cover the rest. I'm still worried about the dog. I'm glad we stayed upright and my daughter was not hurt. I wish we could just go back to being a bicycle family, but the charter school is too far away, and the school near our house is not so good.
So, at the end of this month, when I thought the mortgage would be paid off, I find myself having to do some financial juggling to keep all the balls in the air. My lovely cat is missing, and I've run over a dog and broken my scooter.
April has to be better, right?