Friday payday

 It is Friday night and my idea of fun is paying bills. Yep!

Some good news this week. I made my goal of $1600 for the car maintenance. And scheduled the appointment. My baby goes in for a tune up on Wednesday.

So my savings goal is back down to $182.34. That's okay. Because I am getting $18 from Mercari. I sold a couple things. And I'm getting a healthy chunk of money from DoorDash.

I have been working DoorDash all week. The weather has been nice and I've been able to get out and put some hours in and some miles on my car. I am laser focused on getting that balance up to $1000. So, if for the next few week, I'm working every day and doing 2 shifts on Saturday and Sunday, so be it. 

I'm going to be doing DoorDash as long as the sun holds out. But, I stop when it gets dark. Right now I'm stopping at about 7:30. There's still some light out. But soon the days will be getting shorter and I'm not going to have that sunlight. So I'll need to cut down on my hours. That's when I ramp up the intensity on selling stuff at home. 

I'm also not going to do DoorDash in inclement weather. So - snow or freezing butt cold - nope. My car can't handle it and I'm not risking my life. Again, I will ramp up the intensity on selling stuff. 

If you know me at all, I'm always planning. Well, I haven't finished Baby Step 1 of the Dave Ramsey program, but I'm already thinking of Baby Step 2. Baby Step 2 is where I do the debt snowball. It's also when I can start the sinking funds. 

Sinking funds are accounts or events in our life that don't happen every month. So, Christmas, for example. Dave tells us that Christmas is not an emergency and we shouldn't use our emergency funds for Christmas or birthday gifts. Instead, we should allocate some money from our budget to Christmas to buy gifts. Another is home maintenance. Things are going to break. It's a fact of life. So, if we allocate money each month to that fund, we won't need to use our emergency fund to fix a broken toilet or replace the dishwasher. 

I don't like to keep cash in the house. And my budget is already strained as it is. So, my money from DoorDash and selling stuff will serve as the funds for the sinking funds. I have set up SmartyPig goals for each of my sinking funds. I just threw out an arbitrary goal date for them and will adjust as needed. $50 a month will go into each of these funds, except for clothing. I'll devote $20 for that fund. The rest of the funds are Christmas (and birthdays/holidays), Cats (vet bills are a pain), Car (for maintenance and for the new ride), House maintenance, Medical/Dental (so I don't have to use care credit) and vacation. So, I need to make $320 to put money into each of these funds every month. Anything extra will get rolled into the debt snowball. And, if I have anything extra from my paychecks, I'll use those funds for my sinking funds, and then roll the rest into the debt snowball. Not to mention, when I hit Baby Step 2 again, I'll start putting half of my DoorDash proceeds into an 8th account, just in case for taxes. 

Whew! That's a lot of steps for a step I'm not even on yet. I'll still take out $80 for gas and $170 for food every 2 weeks. 

But I have to organize it to compartmentalize everything. I could do different colored envelopes in my safe, but then I'd have to take the money out of my account every time it reaches $50 and then, when I want to use it online, I have to make it to my bank to deposit it. This way, I can electronically keep track of everything. 

That's all for tonight. Maybe tomorrow I will sell something. That would be amazing. 

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