A Step Closer To Freedom

This may seem like a strange time for anybody in this country to think with any rationality that anything in their life it moving closer to any definition of freedom. And no, I'm not referring to anything on the political landscape. We're all fucked. Get over it. The only questions remaining are how much and in how many ways? I'd also ask how we could fix it, but I'm a pessimist.

No, this is a more personal kind of freedom. I managed to make the final payments on two different loans today. The car is all mine, not the bank's. The same applies to the loan I had to take out to replace the roof's AC/furnace (yeah, that's how they do it down here).

It's not just that those payments are ended. It's also that they both came due the first of the month. For most folks that is not only usual for big bills, it's expected. However, when it came my turn to sign up for Social Security, my payments come on the second Tuesday of the month. So I have to do my budgeting with the requirement that something has to be left over until the first of the next month. For me, that means checking my balance about every third day, redoing the math on  upcoming bills where the amount fluctuates once the bill is deducted, and trying to make sure there is sufficient balance to cover whatever it was I'd forgotten.

You know, like those quarterly bills: was this the month? Were taxes due? How about those community center fees? License tabs for the car? How much heat/water/electricity did we use?

 I know everybody's budget works a lot like that. The amount of a bill is announced a couple weeks before it's due. It's not supposed to be that much of a challenge. I've figured out a system to keep things flexible. Expenses that can, such as groceries, gas, clothing, go on the main credit card. All the extra in the budget goes the same place. Nearly always the total balance drops. I had planned to work that extra couple years to bring the balance way down, but, well, life happened.

 But I've been known to blythely dump all I think I have on that last bill sometime before realizing there was one extra bill, or an emergency comes up that can't go on the plastic. Life still happens. Worrying aside, I do a pretty good job of covering what and when I need to. I haven't had to touch savings for quite a while.

But now, there are two fewer bills coming due at the most inconvenient of times. The income and outgo match much better. And even better, that amount can now go towards that credit card balance, bringing me even closer to both debt and worry freedom. Somewhere in the back of my head that  Flashdance earworm is playing, "What a feeling!"