| Another awful month. I knew it would be bad, but didn't realize it would be this bad. It's a good thing I had already decided to spend as little money as possible in July. I also started tracking all income and spending again on 01 July, and will spend at least one month tracking all of my spending until I start getting this under control again.
I bought a plane ticket in June to fly to Chicago and look at apartments (I'll be there 04-06 July). I paid for some other bigger recurring but not monthly expenses (including a new cell phone, eye doctor appointment, and a summer gym membership). I also did quite a bit of traveling this month, which meant quite a bit of eating at restaurants, and twice chipping in on hotel rooms (usually my monthly spending on restaurants would be under $50 and hotels would be $0). Since I never carry credit card debt, all of this was paid for from savings this month.
When I logged in to check my student loan balance, they had added the interest accumulated during the past year to the balance. I've been throwing $50 toward the loan here and there, and had signed up to make monthly interest payments during the school year. However, the company wouldn't sign me up for auto-withdraws from my bank, nor would they send me monthly emails or letters saying how much interest was accumulating. I decided it isn't that essential that I make the interest payments while in school, so I didn't pursue it (other than, as I said, making occasional payments of $50 here and there).
So far I've worked for 3 weeks unpaid at my 5-week summer job. They are still processing my employment documents, so I'll probably end up with a lump sum payment at the end of summer. I've also been working other odd jobs that I haven't been paid for yet. So I should have a decent amount of income for July once I actually get paid. I'm also supervising a trip with students, so I'll be reimbursed mileage and paid per diem for meals for 3.5 days. I'll probably come out slightly ahead on that deal - plus if I'm getting rid of my car when I move to Chicago next month, the cost of wear and tear on my vehicle won't end up being much of a cost for me. |