Week #24 - What if the rainy day doesn't come?

So for the last 23 weeks I have been preaching to you that you should save as much money as you can at pretty much any cost. I've told you all the things you can cut out, all the things you can do to get 'free' money and all the things that you should be saving for. I've told you that even saving $5 a week will add up over the course of a year and I do believe all of those things, but I'm starting to wonder if there is a limit to how much someone should push themselves to save?

Last weekend my mother-in-law was talking about another family member and about how every time he got a paycheck he would 'pay himself first', meaning put a certain amount of money away for savings. Then as the week/month went on if he didn't have enough money to buy something he wanted, he would go without it. What I realized at that moment that I do the first half of that (paying myself first), but I don't always do the second half (going without) which is why by the end of most months I'm stressing about having the cash on hand to pay my credit card bill and its why those five week months are so huge in helping me catch up on things.



Now when I say I don't 'go without' I don't mean that I spend like crazy and even the couple of habits I have (comics & records) are well under control, but I do spend money. I go out to eat with my wife and we do stuff sometimes. Like today we are going to see the Pawtucket Red Sox because a good friend of ours' son is going to get to go on the field. Now the tickets to the game are only $12 which sounds really cheap but for both of us that will be $24. Plus the game is at 5:30 so we will eat dinner at the stadium and I'm trying to talk myself out of it, but I would like to get a new baseball hat also. That can quickly turn into a $75 night out!

So what I've been thinking is that maybe I should slow down a little and not stress as much about saving money. We've all heard the phrase 'saving for a rainy day' right? Well what if that rainy day never comes and you have this pile of money saved, but you missed out on a comic book, a new record or a baseball game that you really wanted to see? Was it worth it? Probably not. Now the check that I would 'save' is still two weeks away based on my budget, but what I'm thinking is that I might put 1/2 (or maybe 2/3's) into my money market savings and just take the rest to spend on something for my wife & myself to do. I mean I have a certain amount of money saved for when I need a new car or for car repairs, but I've been saving money towards it ever since my current car was paid off so don't I deserve to enjoy NOT having a car payment for awhile? I've already saved $857.99 towards a car just this year and some people don't have much more than that for a full down payment when they buy a new car! I haven't decided for sure yet if I'll stop the car saving or not, but I wanted to let you know that I was thinking about it at the very least.

 

Ok, so here are the details on this weeks income. I got a paycheck for $662.80. It was a little more than usual because at my work we have this insane thing called a 'vacation bonus'. It was put in the union contract in the 70's as 'beer money' for when a guy went on vacation. Its supposed to be $50 the first week of vacation you take and $15 for each additional week. It used to be paid out during the weeks the employee was on vacation, but the company screwed it up and forgot to pay it so many times that now everyone gets a lump sum in June. So for example I get 3 weeks of vacation so my 'vacation bonus' was for $80 in this weeks check. Yeah... Its crazy and no I'm not making it up! So of my $662.80 I had $42.32 go to my 401K pre-tax and I'm going to put $50.00 in the quarter loan payment account and the remaining $612.80 in my mortgage checking account. I also made my standard $20 vacation transfer this week.

Here is the week 24 wrap up:
$42.32 to my 401K
$20.00 to my vacation fund
$50.00 in the quarterly loan payment account

Which makes the 2013 totals:

$801.62 in my 401K
$480.00 in the vacation fund
$48.05 in the piggy bank
$300.00 in the quarterly loan payment account
$100.00 in my vet bill savings
$858.00 in my money market
$857.99 in my car account

for this weeks bonus I will remind you that a couple of weeks ago I was talking about buying a new hockey jersey because the one I had was much to big since I lost weight. Well, I got an offer from a reader of this blog to trade my XXXL Gerry Cheevers winter classic jersey for his XXL Brad Marchand 2011 Stanley Cup jersey. We made the trade today and we are both happy. I'm sad to see the Cheevers jersey go because it was a special one, but I rather someone wear it than have it sit in my closet unworn!