I knew it was coming and in my goofy way, I even warned you all. I said I have a little trouble not getting heady at the thought of more than $30 in my checking account. And I did get goofy. I would recommend, in hindsight, not scheduling your refund to deposit over Valentine’s Day weekend. That turned out to be a bad combination with how much my husband and I like to spoil each other in small ways on Valentine’s Day (I am one of few people I know who embrace it; I know it’s stupid, but I stopped pretending not to want flowers and chocolate). So, there were concert tickets and books, and then going to dinner and then my sweet Hubby got me flowers and breakfast and new headphones so I can commute more peacefully.
Then, of course, I paid all the bills and used our refund to pay the credit cards off. Sooooo, yeah. On Tuesday when the banking world cranked back into motion, the old bank account was looking a little less cushy. Specifically, I had to trade in my spare change and deposit a little check I had lying around just to avoid bank fees. So, that sucks.
What’s wrong with me? Why didn’t I take a deep breath and actually figure out how much I could really spend over the weekend? These are good questions. Whatever is holding me back is what has been messing with my finances for my whole adult life.
I had been doing really well with my focus on groceries, but I forgot that the occasional fun spending splurge can do you in and quickly become a regret. I’d like a do-over of the weekend like I’d like to kiss all those guys I didn’t kiss in college, but all I can do is move on and think about what I did right (same goes for the college guys).
First and foremost, according to www.creditmonkey.com’s interest calculator, we should save about $662 in interest on the payments I won’t have to make this year at the pace I was paying my credit cards (assuming I didn’t use them at all for the next 11 months or so). And we have that credit available for things we really need, or in case of an emergency, which is a great feeling.
