Tags
budget, budgeting, family, finance, finances, financials, medical, medicine, money, paying less, personal-finance, saving money, savings
So I used the taxes to build a bit of a buffer. I mean just a bit of a buffer and thank heavens I did because my health took a turn that left me unable to really work for an entire week! I still have part of that buffer, but I will be spending the rest of the month building it back up. That is what the entire goal of it was, to be a month ahead on the bills just incase an emergency happened so I could have bills paid on time, with no late fees, and not scrambling last minute to get everything paid.
That has already saved me forty dollars this month just by having money set aside for bills ahead of time. That is such a satisfying feeling. I didn’t even dip into that extra money to go to the doctor or emergency room. I didn’t have to plead poverty when the co-pays came due. Also, even though my boss threatens to hold back pay for almost a month, I am not concerned. I have one bill due on the first of every month and I have another line of income to build up for that in the meantime. I already have part of that built up anyway for next month. Normally, this would be a financial disaster. Simply putting aside one month’s income saved me so much hassle.
I have also started implementing other money-saving strategies. I have changed my pay from PayPal to check. I wanted a direct deposit, but my work is refusing to do that. Either way, this will save me another $20 to $30 a month in payment processor fees. This is all low-hanging fruit, but I could not have saved this money by switching to a check or direct deposit without having some money set aside for the month’s bills primarily because anything other than PayPal is always late. Just these two measures have saved me $70 this month which was more than enough to pay for my co-pays and my gas to the doctor.
Then I bought our cat food in bulk and paid cash. This saved me about twelve dollars on the cat food in total this month as I was no longer paying a dollar a pound, but seventy cents a pound now for buying in bulk, and I didn’t pay card processing fees at the local feed store because I paid in cash.
I still have yet to consolidate my errands. I found that is quite difficult to get done. Also, I have yet to fully move all my banking to the free bank account and close down my bank account that is costing me seven dollars a month. I have automated most of my bills in special “stash” accounts at the new bank which has free accounts. I still need to automate the water bill. I even have a tiny amount saved in my savings account.
I still have a lot to do obviously, but the “easy” stuff has been done. Now comes the harder things to save money. Once all my bills are automated, I will no longer pay a single late fee. Then I can start getting our basic necessities put on grocery pick up to lessen the temptation to impulse buy when I am in the shops getting our needs met. I picked up four ladies panties for fifty cents each the last time I went shopping. That is two dollars I would not have spent if I didn’t wander around in the shops trying to get the groceries.
I am in the process of getting my medications delivered to my door every three months so I no longer have to go back and forth to town every single time the pharmacy makes a mistake. Also, this will stabilize the prices of my medicine instead of the pharmacy changing the prices everytime I go up there. I don’t trust the local pharmacy. They have given me expired meds, ruined meds, half a prescription, doubled charged my card, over charged me, double charged my insurance, and so many more unacceptable mistakes. I don’t know how they are still in business.
I have had overseas pharmacies send medication quicker, more professionally, with less hassel, and they were half way around the world. In fact, I am waiting on my overseas pharmacy order right now and expect I will get it before the local pharmacy can figure out if my script made it in or not. It is cheaper, even with insurance, to get some medications I have prescribed in my family to buy it outright with cash from overseas.
After this, it’s time to go through the house and sort what we have and what we don’t in the various areas of life. I did recently splurge on an electric tea kettle to have some tea quickly instead of using the propane. I love my electric tea kettle. It gets plenty of use daily.