Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Convergence

Take a deep breath, hold it, let it out slowly… that’s what I have to keep telling myself.

April is being very mean to me.  Too bad April isn’t a person.  This month seems to be an unexpected conglomeration of numerous blows against my financial well-being.  Allow me to summarize:

• I’m getting a modest refund from my federal taxes, but I owe state taxes double that amount.
• We have to pay the tax lady for doing our taxes.
• Car registration due on two vehicles.
• My sweety’s unemployment checks just ran out, and nobody seems to be hiring.
• There are still monthly payments to be made for one car, three credit cards and a fucking mortgage that just won’t go away even though we got rid of the fucking house (we sold at a loss).
• Oh yeah, and rent too.

I started to panic this morning.  It’s very rare for me to have any kind of anxiety attack, but the thought of being financially destitute can do that to me sometimes.  Or maybe I was just due for an attack. I don’t know. I was just made aware of some once-a-year bills, all magically due within a one-month time frame. It’s an uncanny convergence of events. Had I thought about these things earlier, I wouldn’t have bought those plane tickets to go see my sisiter.  I went to refund them this morning, but because they were a discounted special price, no refunds allowed. Fuck fuck fuck you Southwest.

Take a deep breath, hold it, let it out slowly…

My heart was just sinking as I drove in to work this morning, all this shit on my mind. I’ve always been horrible at managing money. I just figure if I’m a cheapskate then I’ll be fine. Doesn’t work like that. You actually have to plan things. Ugh, financial planning is one of the most distasteful tasks in the world to me. I wish somebody else would do it. But then I’d have to pay them. Bah.

Luckily I recognized my anxiety and the irrationality that tends to accompany it. So I sat down and added together all the things that needed to be paid this month.  Do I have the savings to cover it?  Luckily, yes, I’ve been doing all right saving up since the house fiasco. Okay, transfer funds then.  Next I added up all the month-to-month bills that we get and compared that to my income… am I covered? Why… yes!  With some extra to spare. So we’re in no danger of being financially destitute after all.

So why did I panic? I’m normally a calm, rational person.  All I had to do was think it through instead of going off the deep end. I guess it was the sudden realization that I was standing on the edge of what seemed like a shit storm with no umbrella. I tend to live in the here and now, only occasionally glancing at the future. So long as I don’t have to worry about being able to buy what I need, I’m happy. I guess this time I pulled my head out of the sand to look around and found that security threatened. I don’t like being off-balance. I’m a stable person, who likes stability. Sounds boring, doesn’t it? I’ve never denied it. I’m a boring person. That was established years ago.

But anyway, I’m okay now. I just needed to vent what was left of my frustration here so I could get my heart rate back to normal. And maybe do some work too. These people expect me to earn my paycheck, imagine that.