Making the Internet My Accountability Partner

Featured Photo by Ralf Knüfer on Unsplash

This month I’ve been very behind in maintaining my budget journal. Luckily my spending hasn’t changed and I am still very much on track for my goals, but I don’t feel great about the level of disinterest I have in my day-to-day finances. I’d like to think I can blame part of this on what happened at the end of last month. Long story short I had to close out my previous checking account due to security issues and open a new one, which required waiting for a new debit card at the same time as I was prepping to visit family out of state. So a lot of my finances got transferred to my credit card, and I still haven’t found a great way to track finances on both credit and debit cards at the same time and have it make sense to me. But it is in many ways more important now than ever to keep on top of my finances, our electric bill is always higher in the summer and I’ve already started seeing it plus our previous internet discount also just expired and so that bill is now double what it used to be.

The other thing that’s left this month feeling a little too up in the air for me to feel invested is that next week is the one-year anniversary of starting my current job, so now I am eligible to begin saving for retirement. Knowing that the paycheck I see will change has made me feel like I shouldn’t get comfortable with this month’s finances. That makes no sense when I type it out because it’s not a logical way to think. Emotions, however, are rarely logical. I am in many ways spending this month in waiting mode. I had to wait to get my new checking account set up and re-establish all of my recurring payments. I have to wait for the start of July so I can know my post-investment paycheck. This leaves me feeling like I have to wait to make any progress on my financial goals. For some reason waiting to take steps towards my goals leaves me feeling like I have no goals for the month. I often felt this month like I was just treading water, waiting for something to happen for me to react to rather than being a proactive force in my life.