Making the Internet My Accountability Partner

It has been two weeks since I created my plan to track my spending impulses and dedicate the money I saved for my debt payoff plan. The first week was super boring, I mostly just avoided places that would tempt me to buy nonessentials. The second week I only had one significant temptation, an Animal Crossing Lego set that was being sold on FB Marketplace for $25. According to plan I should send that $25 to one of my loans. However, just a couple days into week one we found out that my childhood dog will need surgery. My mom is not in a financial place to pay that kind of bill, so I need to be. The surgery is being planned for January and is likely to be around $2k.

My partner has pet insurance for his dog and it’s given us such peace of mind that I finally decided I would take the plunge and get my childhood dog pet insurance. The way this and most pet insurances work is that you will have to pay the vet but then the pet insurance reimburses you. For the next two months I will be saving up as much money as I can, thankfully I already had $770 in flexible savings so I can add to that and be more assured of reaching my goal.

Unfortunately, needing to prioritize the surgery payment means that I am only paying the minimum on my debts at the moment. I will still need the accountability and check ins of my current system, especially because come February I will need to get back on my debt payoff goal.

The other tracker I created for myself was the punch card of no spend days and workouts. I was feeling so optimistic that i could have 10 days of each completed in a two week period. I objectively have only done 6 work outs as of posting this. However I have also only counted 6 no spend days. I have recently been feeling a little frustrated with the difficulty of sticking to a complete no spend day. I have had a couple situations where I plan to do all the essential shopping I need in one day, but then something that I need I just can’t find so the search, and spending, has to continue into the next day or the day after. I have a feeling that part of this has been the nature of the winter holiday season. I will need to make peace that completing these punch cards will not be as easy as I hoped for the next few months, but come February things should settle down.