The Money Blues

I've been having a weird week. To sum up:

      - Bought my first-ever smartphone.  Had to get a new number, losing the one I've had for 8 years. Not to mention all of the strife that comes with any contact with a telecom company.
     - Earned my first-ever promotion at work [in title and workload]. Have to wait on that most important aspect of promotion... The $. 
     - Got my first-ever ear infection. Had to go to Urgent Care and get 2 shots (thanks for making me go, B). Oh the pain. And the co-pay.

     - Watched a friend leave my company. Had to say goodbye.
     - B got some wisdom teeth out. Had to worry from work all day about him. Oh, and our super awesome dental insurance might only cover the first 4 wisdom teeth - not the 2 extras....

Not to mention that it's been Passover, so there was a big feast to prepare 8 days ago, and since then, there have been a lot less food and snacks around the house. For those who don't know, a Karissa without snacks is usually pretty grumpy.

And you know, it's emotionally trying to constantly be thinking about money. But, how do you keep on track with your budget if you're not constantly thinking about money? Mostly all of the above events that make up my weird week all come back to the almighty dollar.

- Get the best deal on the phone we want. Don't pay too much. How much is too much. What's the best course of action to get the deal we need?
- Promoted, but no upfront increase in salary until I prove my value. How do you deal with having all the same responsibility without the benefit of a raise?
- Get sick?  Pay your co-pay, plus buy prescriptions, plus feel cruddy until the meds kick in.
- Figure out how to pull your budget together for a necessary dental visit on top of the pain of having 3 teeth pulled.
- And Passover. Passover is an 8 day fast of all things yeasty, vinegary, live culture-y, and fermenty. You start the week by cleaning out everything from your pantry with any of these types of ingredients, and then you hold a meal called a Sedar on the first night to commemorate Passover. It takes money to prepare a Passover Sedar, and it takes money to replenish all of the food you got rid of that had those ingredients. Talk about having to stretch your grocery budget.

So what's my point?  My point is that having to deal with so many shifts in my schedule, things not going the way I want, and worrying about money has really put a damper on my week. But worrying about money is a necessity as an adult. Which is all the more reason that we have made a budget, and have to stick to it. So, I probably won't be able to fully replenish my well-stocked pantry with what remains of my budget for this month. We added an expense in phone contracts that we were expecting to coincide with a raise, which is still a way off, but have enough extra at the moment to cover it. And we had to absorb the cost of an extra trip to the doctor from our annual budget, as well as extra pulled teeth from what's looking like our tax return.

But we have the budget in place so that when I did have to go to the doctor, we weren't worrying about where that money is going to come from in that moment. So yeah. I've had to "worry" about money. But since B and I are on the same page with our budgeting system and have worked most of the kinks out, that's a little less to worry about.