Finances can wait - what a feeling!
My financial life is pretty organized. I suspected as much, but I really realized it when I came home from a 5 day trip last night, and the first thing I did *wasn’t* related to money. Like anyone returning home after an absence, I had a whole pile of things I needed to get done. One of these things was enter all my receipts from the trip and reconcile everything with my bank account.
But I still haven’t done it (although I will sometime today). Why? Because I have a good idea where everything stands money-wise already, so I know that the reconciling is for bookkeeping purposes and general keeping track of things, and not to make sure I have enough money to cover the bills being paid this week.
That does not mean we magically found a bunch of money and I won’t have to raid the emergency fund at all this month like I thought, or anything like that. It just means that because I have been keeping track of things and spending on our vacation was within our pre-planned limits, I know how much we spent already approximately and I know where that fits in our general budget. I’m not panicked. I’m not hustling to transfer money from our emergency fund “just in case” there’s not enough money in our account. I know there is right now.
It is a good feeling. I like feeling in control of the money versus the money controlling me. We even had ice cream on vacation. More than once. But that’s a story for another post. Now I need to start gathering all the information for our transportation and food reimbursement and pay a bunch of bills online. With money safely sitting in our checking account, I might add.
I like this organized non-panicked lifestyle. It certainly has grown on me.
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October 21st, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Good for you! Glad that settling back in can be relaxing and not panicky.
October 21st, 2007 at 3:26 pm
That is a real nice feeling. Glad you were able to enjoy your trip without worrying about finances.
October 22nd, 2007 at 6:04 pm
It is a good feeling. Weird. In a good way!