Months like this one show me, I still have so far to go. Way too much spending in "everything else". Of course, $600 was my HVAC repair. But even excluding that, it was too much. Where did it go? Mostly eating out (for convenience), which was totally unneccessary as we have plenty of groceries at home. J did get some new clothes (2 jeans, 4 tshirts), his first this entire school year. He got a new speedo for swim team. I bought him some things at Party City for spirit week. Face paint and green hair spray to be the joker. A red bandana with attached fake dredlocks for pirate day. (I figured that one will be great in the future for International Talk Like A Pirate Day, Halloween, and the occasional FSM event. Not so much for me, but for J or even BF.) I blame no one but myself.

I don't regret the J expenses at all, but because of those expenses, there shouldn't have been ANY meals out. To me, that is the point of having a discretionary category like "everything else".

Well, nothing to do but begin anew in February.

I have received my electric bill for February, and after I pay it I will have a credit balance of $504.51. February is the month they recalculate my "balanced bill pay" amount, and March is the first month I pay the new amount. I am expecting my monthly bill to drop at least $50. I will be able to trim a bit from my budget for utilities. I intend to add that amount to my automatic CurveBall transfer.

I am still waiting to receive payment from Second Spin. Looking forward to adding that to E Fund.

My wallet sweep last payday netted me $1 for E Fund. Just $1. I guess really, anything at all is a bonus because it is the unspent portion of my cash allowance. Nonetheless, I like to do a little better than that!

Tomorrow I will work a full day and bank some more OT hours. I'm looking forward to the work tomorrow, too. A client with 3 LLCs and some personally owned rental properties. I don't do her tax returns, but I get to do her accounting for the year. For some reason, I always look forward to doing her books. If I finish with her stuff before I have put in 8 hours, I have plenty of other work to choose from.