Whenever I go on a spending binge, I avoid looking at the balance of my checking account because I'm scared of how much I've actually spent and how much I actually have left. In other words, I nearly always avoid checking my checking account.
But I usually come around to it whenever I sense that I'm getting really, really low. Such was the case during my two-week "furlough" inbetween jobs last month. I don't know how it happened -- that's always my excuse -- but it felt as though I had spent an inordinate amount of money over the summer, and so my unemployment, just around the time my credit card bill was due, came at an extremely inopportune time. And sure enough, when I looked, I saw that I was hovering just above two grand -- my self-imposed Mendoza line between solvency and ... well, I don't know how my left would change if I fell below that.
Well, it's gotten worse. My only significant change to seeing my bankroll that low is to charge everything until I started getting paychecks at my new job. But that hasn't stopped my spending. And something else bad has creeped up on me: I have realized that being paid bi-weekly, instead of weekly as I always have been at my temp jobs (and why is that?) really, really sucks. Twice the money is nice, but not if I have to wait every other week to get them. The wait is interminable, and I believe that at least for this cycle and possibly for the next, my paycheck won't come in time for me to use it to pay my credit card bill.
So the reckoning has come. Some time this past week I checked my checking account and I am below two grand. On top of that, I actually did some shuffling around with my money. I actually took $500 out of my PayPal and put it back into my personal account in order to fatten it up and, frankly, to make myself feel better. Confession: I don't know if all the money I took out of my PayPal is technically mine.
It really didn't matter. I am below my Mendoza line after I stuffed it with my PayPal money. Which means that however fallow my account is right now, it actually is $500 dollars worse. In other words, I have -- gulp ... close to a grand to my name. Really, it's just a thousand bucks.
I don't know where the money went. And I have to be honest with myself: If I really cared, I'd stop spending money. But hey, my parents are away, the State Fair is here, and I need to get a blowjob from someone I haven't seen in months, so I ain't stoppin'.
The only thing I can promise myself is to pay my bills. Whenever my paycheck comes, I know it'll immediately go back out to pay my credit card bills. After that I need to replenish (somewhat) my PayPal account, then if there's money left over, I might give some to the alumni club. And that means I will be ... back to where I am, money-wise.
Good bleepin' Lord, where did all my money go?!
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