Keeping My Fingers Crossed for a Debt-Free December

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. Mine was certainly relaxing and downright frugal (at least for the day).

Anyhow, I've been keeping track of my spending for the holidays and so far, I'm under-budget. But to be honest with you, I'm only under-budget if I count some financial chicks that haven't hatched quite yet.



My holiday budget was based upon:

1. My Christmas fund (which was woefully underfunded at $150),


2. My December food/gas/toiletries/incidental budget ($500),


3. Several pending business expense reimbursements from my company ($821), and


4. A monetary bonus that I should be getting for successfully completing a professional designation program ($480 after taxes).

Part of the problem with my budget this month was that I had couple of expenses that arose unexpectedly (e.g., my cat's $275 vet bill and $744 to replace my tires.) I've tapped my other earmark funds like my "pet fund" and "car maintenance fund" to pay for these items, but alas, they too were inadequately funded. Therefore, I'll have to access my "new laptop fund" to pay for some these expenses.

I also took an ill-timed $288 girls' getaway weekend with my BFF early this month. My BFF and I agreed that the weekend will be our Christmas gift to each other and that helped a little bit. I'll be paying for the weekend out of my "Vacation Fund", but again, the fund is insufficient. (Sigh...)

Based upon my spreadsheet, I won't incur new debt this month so long as my company reimburses/bonuses me before my credit card comes due on 1/26/09. If my company doesn't come through in time, I will either have to tap my EF or sell some company stock to pay it off. Either scenario is not great, but I am determined not to incur any new debt.

Let this be a lesson to me to avoid creating budgets and spending money based upon money that I don't yet have in hand!