Well it has been a long road this month. I will do a budget recap probably this weekend. Today I want to talk about graduation and college insanity which took place this past week. There were two forces at work on me last week. One was work and one was my family. I have never been able to travel for work in my life. When I was offered the opportunity to attend training I was excited to go. I knew pretty far in advance and gave my travel dates to my daughter and fiancée. It was not too big a deal she is a senior in high school and the pair get along most of the time. We created a plan. I was to travel to the training. On Thursday I would meet them in NC and we would then go together to a freshman registration weekend at the college my daughter is planning to attend. Great. I felt confident leaving things in my fiancée's hands and I felt my daughter would have the chance to have a little fun too.
Monday I flew to the training location. Fiancée had hurt his back. Oh boy. I was already wishing I could turn around and go home to be there for him. Tuesday he let me know that there was no way he could travel down with the daughter for the college weekend. Drat. Okay, So I hopped on line and found a cheep airline ticket for her to meet me at the airport and we would drive together to the college event. Hmmm... but wait... how would we drive? Well my dad lives not to far away... Oh no, the beloved basketball team is playing tonight. Drat. and I am going to need to get from the hotel to the college. Okay rent a car.
Now I should interject here that I have not put a single new charge on my credit cards since January. I am RESOLVED to be out of debt. So I did not take a credit card with me on the trip. I had enough coverage in my checking account to handle the trip. I have been holding a small sum waiting on the car insurance to tell me how much the insurance would be. So as I went off to training I thought I was covered. I was really resolved not to put any new charges onto plastic.
Oh but Murphy's law..... when something can go wrong it will go wrong. And so Murph dog came to visit me. First the additional plane ticket. Plus the planned expense of the hotel for the college weekend. Then the rental car. The freshman sign up weekend cost me are you ready..... $770.48. Oh its true. GULP where on earth am I going to get funding for that?
The travel out of pocket costs are $360.58. This money I will get back but companies are very slow to pay, which is why I did not want to put it on a credit card and have to front the interest. No thank you. So I have not yet figured out if March comes out even. I will pull all the numbers together.
On a side note. I had been missing listening to Dave Ramsey on my laptop while I go to sleep. (I like to listen to the archives) As I was catching up yesterday he had TWO callers ask about credit cards for traveling. He unequivocally stated that NO, you do not use credit for travel. Build up a small reserve and let it fly. Man am I glad I had that small cushion this week. This is why my goals for an emergency fund are $2000.00 not $1000.00 I just need a little more cash flow then the average bear with a teenage daughter.
Well I am really proud of myself this week. I was so nervous about needing to use the plastic. But I did it I stuck it out and I resisted the temptation to use that crutch. Yea HOO!
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