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In a few weeks, the girls and I will hit the road to drive to Texas for Thanksgiving. The original plan was to drive there and back together. While I was in Texas this past month, that changed.

My dad needs more assistance with sorting some things out at the house. We dealt with a lot of the clutter, rearranged rooms, purged items this last time. However, there remains piles and piles of paperwork and boxes that have been unopened since they moved there 10+ years ago.

While I was there, we decided that the girls will fly back after Thanksgiving and I will remain for some additional time, possibly 2-3 weeks. During that time, I will tackle the piles of paperwork and see if we can get some sort of process for making sure bills don’t fall through the cracks.

The Financial Implications

We are boarding 3 of the 4 dogs (including Jake who currently lives with Princess) for this trip. My dog Addie will go with us. She typically travels with me especially when I’m car camping along the way. Boarding the dogs will run $25 per day per dog. My dad has agreed to cover that cost for the additional time I will be gone.

: Cali

: Opie

: Addie

After we confirmed with the girls that they were good with flying back, my dad booked their return flights. To be honest, I think they were both a bit relieved to get out of the return road trip. And I love solo road trips, so win-win.

In the end, I think this is a good plan. And does not cost me any more money than the original plan. In fact, it saves me some money since I won’t need to pay for a hotel on the trip back home. (I love car camping.) And I’ll save on two – three weeks of groceries since my dad provides food when I’m there.

Hope

Hope is a creative, solutions-focused business manager helping clients grow their business and work more efficiently by leveraging expertise in project management, digital marketing, & tech solutions. She’s recently become an empty nester as her 5 foster/adoptive kids have spread their wings. She lives with her 3 dogs in a small town in NE Georgia and prefers the mountains to the beaches any day. She struggles with the travel bug and is doing her best to help each of her kids as their finish schooling and become independent (but it’s hard!) She has run her own consulting company for almost twenty years! Hope began sharing her journey with the BAD community in the Spring of 2015 and feels like she has finally in a place to really focus on making wise financial decisions.

Changing the Whole Plan – Prioritizing Savings

by Hope

I recognize the whiplash of my thinking. My apologies for not responding to the individual comments. It’s been a really challenging month with “busy-ness”.

However, I did sit down this week and read through many of them during some quiet times of reflection. And I am so grateful that you as a community keep hounding me. I need it.

Big Change of Plans

I recognize that you all only see the smallest sliver of my life here. There is so much more to it. And it’s just as much of a roller coaster. As much as I love the “adventure” my life has been, you are very right that this time of stability has me struggling more than I do in times of high stress.

Sitting down to write about my failures was hard. But what is worse is that even in recognizing my biggest failure, I didn’t do anything about it.

I’m still spending down to the last penny every month. I have done NOTHING of significance to prevent the biggest challenges that I have faced over the last decade…a couple of times. By that I mean, losing my largest source of income and having no real cushion to tide me over.

Here I am in a season of feast. And while I am paying down debt. And getting things of importance accomplished. I am not focusing on resolving this, my biggest failure.

And failing to do this seriously contributes to my high level of anxiety, fear, and lack of self confidence. I have to change this NOW.

Priority Change

I realize that this blog is Blogging Away Debt. But I feel like it’s important to switch my focus for a few months. And I need to focus on Building a Significant Emergency Fund. The recommended $1,000 just doesn’t cut it.

And I’ve learned this the torturously hard way over the last decade. But I didn’t really learn, because I didn’t change.

I have to change now. This will allow me to be more confident that if something happens with my income, I have time to replace it. (Goal = Peace of Mind that I can’t remember the last time I had)

SAVINGS GOAL: $36,000

I came up with this number by adding my forecasted monthly output for the next months outside of my aggressive debt payments and current savings plan.

Meaning, if I lost the bulk of my income, this is what I would need to meet all financial obligations for 6 months. (With a bit of wiggle room since I used averages.)

So my thought is, instead of pushing to pay off debt. I push to save, thinking 5 months to hit this goal. Then turn my eye back to the aggressive debt payments.

Thoughts? And if this is a good idea, what is the best place to put the bulk of this savings? I’m assuming high yield savings, recommendations? This is a I’m asking post, not telling. Guidance requested.