Spending trigger #1: Major unavoidable expenses

There will inevitably be times that major expenses come up like the 2 new tires I suddenly needed last month or a trip to the vet for all the pets for vaccines (three dogs and two cats!) coming up in June.  Currently I have no way to pay for these things without relying on the card and these expenses always seem to pop up out of nowhere.  Unfortunately part of my problem is that once I start relying on the card for the unavoidable stuff it kind of loosens up my swiping arm and I end up whipping it out for all sorts of stuff (like my junk food addiction).

Part of my goal for this year is to create a small savings account to cover big expenses which I was planning on doing after I had paid off some of my smaller, more urgent debt.  On paper that approach was going to work, unfortunately my piece of paper didn’t identify ANY big expenses coming up or allot any cushion for emergency situations!  I was shoveling every single penny that came in towards debts, taking my account to near zero between paychecks… and now I’m paying for it because I had to reach for the card several times last month (some for unavoidable things but also for all sorts of really unnecessary crap). 

Pretty much every debt pay-off plan I’ve read says to create the cushion savings account before tackling the debt.  I guess I’ve always been the type of person who stubbornly refuses tried and true methods in order to “blaze my own trail” and because of that mentality I’ve gotten to learn from my own mistakes more times than I’d like to admit.  So I’ll be reworking my budget this coming week and creating a new plan that involves saving before debt pay off!  I’ll also be changing my direct deposit at work to automatically put whatever number I come up with in my budget overhaul directly into my savings account.

I also need to start identifying what major expenses will be coming up so I can be ready for them and better guard against the free-for-all spending mentality that hits me after making big purchases.  This part of the plan is actually more important to me than the savings account because it is critical to my making real lifestyle changes.  So next week, along with my budget overhaul, I’ll also be writing out a list of all the major expenses that will, or are very likely to, pop up in 2012.

Here’s to recognizing what weakens my resolve and making a plan to overcome it!