Tickled pink to be in the black

Week 7: Lucky twenty
Originally uploaded by Bizzy Girl.

You may remember the scare I had with Magnus at the end of November. He suddenly became quite ill and had to be hospitalized while we investigated his bizarre health issue. Almost $3000 later he was home and on the mend. I put every penny I had into fixing my beloved kitty, and even though it came close to devastating me financially, I still don't regret it for a second.

As a result, for the first time since I can remember, I became seriously broke. I could barely afford to pay my bills, and had to rely on my $1000 overdraft safety net I had with my bank. The holidays were sadly low-key, as my kids, who usually welcomed Christmas morning with a tree smothered in gifts, found only a few presents for themselves. They handled it very well, mind you, insisting that they just wanted Kitty to get better. I did very little grocery shopping, if any, and found myself taking donations from my mother's pantry, and eating at her place a lot. I am still living off mac & cheese for the most part. Pleasure spending was not even a remote possibility, and I did not go out much and had to watch how much gas I was using. Occasionally, not being accustomed to being so busted, I would make commitments to do things that cost money, forgetting that I couldn't afford it,and had to try to talk my way out of it. It has been a very difficult time.

So imagine my delight when today, while balancing my bank accounts and budgeting for upcoming payments, I discover that when all is said and done by the end of the month I will actually have $800 left over!!! I crunched and re-crunched the numbers just to be sure. After FOUR MONTHS of financial hardship resulting from Magnus' illness I can finally say I have moved from the red to the black.

I am not resting on my laurels at this point, however, as I do have some significant maintenance jobs that have to be done on my house PRONTO following the water damage from almost two months ago. I will need to continue to be frugal with my bean-counting probably for the next couple of months. I have to have my attic ventilated and re-insulated, and my chimney needs re-pointing. I am looking a some pretty hefty bills for that, but I am confident I'll be able to navigate my way through that minefield, and it's only going to increase the value of my home.

The good news is that the vermiculite they found in my attic is NOT contaminated with asbestos, so the few thousand dollars it could have cost to make that problem go away is no longer a worry.

It can only go up from here!