Oops…
You’d have thought it was the end of the world by the way I was running around the house this morning like a chicken with it’s head cut off. Yesterday I had been proud to set a new personal record and demolish my paycheck in less than 5 minutes. It was easy to do too. Larger than usual payments to each of my 3 student loans, a significant payment to my visa card, and largely significant payment to my best buy card (the macbook is finally paid off). That left me with the $500 that I had sitting in my account and that would pretty much remain there until the next paycheck. I don’t like to spend that money. With several house sitting ventures coming up I’d have more than enough cash to sustain my needs like food and gas for my car over the next 15 days. I’d have that $500 as a safety net if I needed it. That was the plan anyways.
The freak out occurred when I opened up my bank account this morning and noticed I had less money in there than I should’ve had if all my payments had gone through. Not all my payments had gone though, thank the lord, I was able to stop one of them, but what had happened is I forgot about the all important, it sustains your life, health insurance payment (I hate that payment, I can have a house with that payment, ok, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but at a minimum, I could have an apartment with that payment).
I’ve never forgotten that payment before, I mean, it’s paying for that insurance that makes sure I get all the supplies I need for my diabetes, that keeps me alive. After long thought, I decided that I was so anxious to pay off my best buy card, which I still owed half of my laptop amount, that everything else basically became insignificant. My little budget and schedule of payments mattered not. I totally broke the teachings of Dave Ramsey on multiple occasions this paycheck. If I had paid the minimum payment on all bills with the exception of my Best Buy card because it’s the smallest amount owed, it wouldn’t have mattered that the health insurance payment was also due. Then, next payday, I could’ve taken that surplus that I didn’t put towards bills and just let it chill in my account and put it towards my Visa card because that’s the card with the next smallest amount. It’s called snowballing debt.
It works when you do it properly, if you get all excited like me to get stuff paid off and you don’t follow the rules then things start to fall apart. Dave Ramsey tells us all the stuff he tells us for a reason. I gotta try to stick to it a little better.
Health insurance is so annoying. I mean, I’m very pro-health insurance - I was in a car accident once and acquired a LOT of health care bills. My insurance really saved my butt on that one. But at the same time, I am annoyed that I have to pay it every month, even though I use it so little, and I am annoyed that it costs so doggone much. For people who are self employed, like me, it’s ridiculously expensive, and to just pay cash for medical stuff it’s ridiculously expensive.
hehe, for me, the health insurance covers so much more than if I didn’t have it. Having diabetes, it’s worth the 500$ a month for the health insurance simply because it’d cost me well over 600$ for my monthly supplies, but it is a huge pain in the butt. I wouldn’t dare go without it, but sometimes the cost almost kills me…
I hate that too when I look at my account and it is less than what I thought it was. I’m glad you caught that.