My Big 3 -- Wow, This Setting Aside Money For Things Is Hard

I have to sit back and at least acknowledge that I am not without money these days.  I am in the  middle of a temporary assignment, and the money I am making is going out just as fast as it's coming in.  But having a paycheck to look forward to keeps me afloat, and although I should be aspiring higher than that by now, I at least (huh, "at least," the mantra of a lazy loser) am not scrounging for cash and seeing my checking account get smaller.  It's not getting bigger, but it's not getting smaller, either.

Saying that, this contractor position has allowed me to dream of buying and doing things with the money I am making.  That complicates, if not ruins, any chance of mounding up my pile of cash before I lose my job.  But hey, what's the use of making money if I can't spend it the way I want, right?

Early in this assignment, around October or so, I had three, uh, purchases I wanted and needed from the money I'm making from this job.  They are:

• A trip to Hong Kong to see Grandmother.  She appears to be in good shape, but she's getting up there, and who knows if I'll be able to see her alive ever again.  If I love her, I should demonstrate that by visiting her.
• A laptop.  The one I have now is getting progressively slower, and the features that seemed cutting edge in late 2007 are becoming woefully obsolete almost a decade later.
• Funding our alumni club's scholarship.  It is our goal to raise $1,000 every year to give away to a student from the area.  Well, like I was afraid of, this year we were miles short of where we needed to be.  I knew when I took the presidency that some day, I would have to foot the money to continue sending out this scholarship out of my own pocket.  That day has come, and I have little faith that that will change in the future.

All three things put together will probably, after spending money on them, leave my checking account with as much money as I had before I started.  But again, at least I had the money to fund the things I think I have to, and really want, to fund.

Problem now -- well, foremost among them -- is when to actually spend the money.  A lot of that is contingent upon knowing when I lose my job.  My plan is to go to Hong Kong as soon as I'm done with my health insurance job.  It would have helped tremendously if I knew when my end date is, for airfare purposes.  Shoot, I thought I knew when my drop-dead date last season was before I even started.  I would have had months to plan things then.  But it's going to be one of those deals where I know, like, three weeks ahead of time.  We'll see if I get lucky then and come across a deal on short notice.

As for the laptop, once I know when I lose my job, I will know the last possible date I can use my employee discount to get a new laptop.  I didn't want to buy it now because Christmas shopping and other expenses though the fall and winter was going to sop up all the money I was making, so buying a lap at the last possible moment is my way of spreading out my purchases.  Course, when I need to buy an airline ticket to Hong Kong, how much spreading can I really do?  Anyway, I will accelerate my search for a new computer as soon as I know when my employment ends.

These expenses are also affecting me funding the scholarship.  I don't need to give a grand this year; we have enough from some donations, plus some money leftover from past fundraisers.  But I still want to eventually give the club $1,000 very soon anyway (and I am thinking about giving another grand for the following year, but I don't want to think about that now).  Problem is is that I will be blowing a huge hole if I give a grand now.  So I am giving only $500, which will be enough with the money we already have to fund the scholarship for this school year, and then give the other $500 the next time I have a job.

And ... I'm exhausted just thinking about all I have to do.  Guess I don't have a conclusion to make from all this, I'm just laying out my plan and complaining.