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You know you are overwhelmed and taking on too much when…

You mark down that you paid it. Watch for the payment to come out of your bank account. And wonder why they are taking so long to deposit it.

But have really failed to pay your utility bill – your gas, water, sewage and trash pick up bill (all in one.) Yup, just discovered this morning that I failed to send the payment.

Ugh!

Jumped on my bill pay app real quick and scheduled payment for this Thursday, but I’m sure I will incur a late fee since I think it was due on the 10th.

And the thing is, I turn things green when I have the exact amount due. And then I turn them yellow when I’ve scheduled payment. So I know what is owed and outgoing and upcoming at any given moment.

But I really dropped the ball here! I would like to blame it on the crazy of working, driving Princess to and from and caretaking for my mom and grandmother the last two weeks. But my mom arrived on the 9th, so really I should have scheduled this payment before that. (At least that’s what I recollect.)

But I will tell you what…caretaking is not for the faint of heart. Or the impatient. Or the over-tired. But it has been good in many senses too. This is the most time I’ve spent with my mom in years. And even though she is loopy at times…her first question when I arrived was “where did I sleep last night?” And yesterday she was talking to my dad…and waving at him, and he is in Texas. It has been good.

And I’ve just got to make it through this week until things will go back to “normal.” Now I’m off to double check all my other “paid” bills to make sure I actually have scheduled payment.

PS – My grandmother came through her 4 hour surgery just fine, they removed 4 teeth and part of her gums and jaw. She will be on a “no chewing” diet for a while. Thankfully it is soup season. And the doctor is hopeful he got all the cancer.

Hope

Hope is a resourceful, solutions-driven online business manager with over two decades of experience helping clients streamline operations, manage projects, and grow their businesses through digital marketing and technology.

But life has a way of rewriting your plans.

A year ago, Hope made the decision to move in with her aging parents full time – a season she wouldn’t trade, even as it came with its own financial and emotional weight. Earlier this year, she lost her mother, and is now walking the tender, disorienting path of grief while learning what “forward” looks like from here.

Hope came to the Blogging Away Debt community in 2015 as a single mom raising five foster and adoptive children. She’s written through job changes, financial setbacks, and the bittersweet transition to an empty nest. Her kids are finding their footing in the world now – and so is she.

Rooted in faith and fueled by the same perseverance she’s brought to every hard season, Hope is ready to face her finances with fresh eyes and an honest pen. She believes that clarity, courage, and community can change the trajectory of anyone’s story including her own.

She lives in Austin, TX with her dad, loves adventures with her dog Addie, and is figuring out, one step at a time, what this next chapter is meant to be.

Misappropriation of the Emergency Fund???

by Beks

My husband and I are on Baby Steps 4 (Invest 15% for retirement), 5 (College fund), and 6 (Pay off home early) of the Dave Ramsey Plan. We save for larger purchases as well including replacement vehicles. We’ve been saving for a slightly larger travel trailer since we have twice as many kids as we do beds and sleeping on the floor in winter months is tough. It rained and was terribly windy for 24 hours solid on one of the days on our three week Christmas trip and all six of us were stuck inside the trailer. It was the final straw.

We have been saving for a while and have $2,000 to upgrade to a larger trailer and $2,000 as a buffer in case we can’t sell our trailer for as much as we think it’s worth. Here’s the problem, we can’t sell our current trailer until we get another one. It can take 4-5 months to find a reasonably priced trailer (it took me four months to find our first trailer) and I’m not willing to go without camping that long. We were recently offered a crazy deal on the exact trailer we were looking to purchase and it’s worth $1,800 more than our current. It’s a smoking deal! Everything turned out perfect in the inspection and my husband is picking it up today.

We don’t use credit EVER so we are writing a check out of our emergency fund and will replenish when we sell our current trailer. You don’t have any savings or an emergency fund yet? Begin saving now!

I get it, I can stop camping, sell our trailer, and then look for another when I sell ours. I am making a stupid call on this but if this weren’t a trailer and was a car instead (and you can’t go without a car most places), what do you do? This will come up again in the next few years when we replace our vehicles. The last few, our current vehicles were valued so low, we simply saved extra. Now that our cars are worth around $10K, does that mean I need to save an extra $10K just so I don’t temporarily use my emergency fund? That doesn’t seem reasonable.

I’ve never touched my emergency fund before so it feels wrong using it but I’m not quite sure what the solution should be.

What would you do?

Beks

Beks is a full-time government employee who enjoys blogging late into the night after her four kids have gone to sleep. She’s been married to Chris, her college sweetheart, for 15 years. In 2017, after 3 long years working the Dave Ramsey Baby Steps, they paid off more than $70K and became debt free. When she’s not working or blogging, she’s exploring the great outdoors.