Rough Budget Transition

Wow. Did I underestimate the transition I’ve got with my new job.

1. I didn’t think I’d have to buy COBRA coverage for very long. I planned for about 2 weeks, but now I’ll need about a month. The good news is that it’s pretty cheap since it was a high deductible plan.

2. Because I worked for an extremely large company before this, my new health insurance is significantly more expensive. This is also true for my dental and vision coverage. I’ll be paying double per paycheck, but the coverage will be about the same or slightly better.

3. As a consultant that will be doing a lot of travel, I will have to pay for my expenses and wait for reimbursement or risk my credit score taking a hit. Because of this, I will have to dip into my emergency fund unless I build up a work expense fund quickly.

4. I won’t be able to contribute to a 401k plan for a few paychecks. In a way, this is good because in the short term, I need more cash (see #3). In the long term though, it could make stuff wonky with trying to max out contributions this year. Thank god I stuck half of my bonus into my old company’s 401k plan. I will be really close to maxing out if if I am aggressive. (BTW, I am still meeting my goal to save $10K in it though.)

It’s not that I’m hard up. I have money saved. But I don’t want to dip into my emergency fund to cover these things or charge them to my credit card. I feel if I am careful, I won’t have to. I tend to manage the float on my charge plate to my advantage and in doing so, I think I can cover it all in the first few paychecks.

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