The nice thing about having an elastic budget is being able to find cash immediately.
Having the car thrown out of alignment was killing me the other day. I sat looking at my spreadsheets trying to figure out how to make my goals for credit card payoff by the end of the year.
Luckily I just decided to knock back my June debt payments to their minimums. That means a credit card to $200.00 and my HELOC to $250.00. That will give me an extra $600+ cash for condo renovations. I resolutely vow to pay for it in cash this year, without taking any balance transfers out to finance it, though I may have to IOU my boyfriend for rent till I have a renter in place. We shall see just how cheap we can go and still make the place livable.
Already I’ve spent $300 on:
Two new ceiling mount light fixtures
One new ceiling fan/light fixture
Plastic carpet protection (sticks to it)
Painter’s masking tape
Sample floor tiles
I am contracting to do some plasterwork from some other water damage I have and planning a new dishwasher for the place. There’s a lot of paint purchasing in my plans.
I am a little worried that I will run out of cash for everything, so I am planning on charging my dishwasher on an interest-bearing credit card at the last minute. I will be able to take a security deposit and first month’s rent and hopefully turn around a payment for the dishwasher without incurring too much debt.
I wish I had spent more time in the past year replenishing my emergency fund after the ceiling caved in, but I paid off a lot of credit card debts instead. This is one of those times where having and using a credit card is good since I have no other choices unless I want to liquidate some short term investment holdings and trigger a short-term capital gain. The tax penalty is greater than the carrying cost of some debt for a month.
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