Monday 7 March 2016

Payday Pondering

Today is payday and as of yet I don’t know exactly how much my paycheque is. On paydays gone by the boss would make out the paycheque and leave it on each of our (the employee’s) desk the night before. 

That way, on the morning of payday I could spend a few minutes in the morning finalizing my budget for this next pay period before the workday started. 

As, after work, I dash off to the bank and then do my errands that I do on payday, so I like to have it planned out, and finalized, beforehand. 

As it is I have an idea what will go where, and the budget is done, per-say. The final budget always depends on the exact dollar amount that my paycheque is; yes my budgets are that tight.

Since the boss took Friday off to spend a day with his son (privilege of rank), that didn’t happen. There have been a few paydays where near the end of the day he hurriedly makes the paycheques out. 

Once, even it slipped his mind and he forgot. Since payday fell on a weekend I waited until Monday . . . still nothing. It wasn’t until the end of business Monday that I politely spoke up. 

I think after then he has put some sort of electronic reminder in place to avoid this. In any event it has never happened again. 

I should point out in all fairness that I have never had any trickery or other games with regards to my pay. All in all he is a good boss, yet fallible like the rest of us, after all he is human.

My payday pondering is just how tight to work my budget and still manage. Sure with the “discounted” tax return I was able to advance my financial plans along.

I was able to get my butt out of overdraft and just under half-way to funding my contingency fund up to $1000.00 for my vacation. 

I recently realized that come May I will have Wanda’s insurance bill and so I had better put some cash aside for that. I plan to put at least $400.00 in there for such an eventuality. 

What this means is that unless I have a large windfall between now and August 1 (doubtful) that at best I will be able to squeak out an extra thousand for my Down Payment fund. 

It is better than nothing I suppose and the real victory is that my finances are on track and that I am employing the hard learned tools to get myself ahead and stay on budget. 

The cost, however, has been any sort of social or romantic life at all. I don’t spend a dime on anything that is not required to keep me alive and therefore working (and earning). 

I guess I have become my own slave driver. I am a horrible boss to myself but I know that I would never ever dream of doing this to anyone else. 

Nether, I suppose would dream of anyone living this lifestyle with me . . . again I digress.

This too will end, this phase of my life will be over and I will once again live in a house, my house, on my acreage. 

Then I can start to socialize again, and perhaps spend on an extravagance or two (like furniture for a start). Until then, I will continue my miser/hermit ways . . . 

After all, it is working to get my butt ahead and that ain’t bad . . . “Discounted Tax Refund” or not.

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