I had a really bad experience the week before last. It was just past the middle of the month and I had run out of money. In February - the shortest month of the year! I couldn't understand how it happened. I suppose that part of the reason was that I was visited by an old friend with her two children for a few days and we did quite a bit of what my husband refers to as "gallivanting".
My neighbour and I were chatting over coffee and it turned out that she was in exactly the same situation. For her things were worsened by the fact that she had been ill for the previous two days and had had to miss two classes (she works on the side as an aerobics instructor) for which she wouldn't be getting paid AND she had just received the bill for repairs to her car after she had inadvertantly (is there any other way?) backed over a low fence.
This got me thinking about the whole issue of finances. This is not something I do often, which is why I am in the situation I described above. I calculated my daily "income" and realised that it doesn't amount to very much per day - or at least not as much as I have been spending on many occasions. A bit of balance is called for. So I've decided that rather than take the whole monthly amount as my budget, or even a weekly budget, I'm going to allocate a daily amount - less than what I actually have and stick to that. On days where I don't spend much I'm saving money for a "splurge" on another day. That way, when unexpected expenses come up, I can deal with them and hopefully I'll even have some money left at the end of the month - now wouldn't that be something!
