My pay day is on Wednesday, the 30th, but we can check our pay statement 3 business days prior to our pay day. So I checked my paycheck and it is $500 more than I was expecting.

Being that I'm part commission, my last paycheck of the month is usually unpredictable. It includes any overtime I've worked, plus my regular 2 weeks of pay, plus my commission for the previous month. I can usually come up with a ballpark figure and I budget off of that. I knew my paycheck was going to be pretty nice, more than it was for the summer months, but I wasn't expecting what I saw!

I always aim and budget for lower, that way if I do get more, it's a surprise. I thought maybe it'd be $100 more than what I had budgeted for, but it's $500! I double checked it to make sure it wasn't a mistake and everything matched up. They just didn't take out as much as I expected for taxes.

So what am I going to do with my extra $500? Well, since I'm already putting extra toward the BofA loan anyway during this paycheck, I decided I'm going to put $400 in my Emergency Fund, an extra $80 in my slush fund and an extra $25 in my Christmas Fund. I'm so glad to be able to put more money in my E-Fund which I have ignored for so long!

Labels: budget, christmas savings, emergency fund, savings

J paid me back for the $210 credit card payment I made for him last week. In fact, he gave me $10 extra! So after plotting for a week how I was going to spend the money, I decided the best thing to do was split it up into a couple different accounts. I really need to beef up my savings a little, especially since I have nothing saved for Christmas and I've taken so much out of my emergency fund lately. Here is how I'm dividing up my $220:

• $100 to Emergency Fund
• $50 to Christmas Savings
• $10 to Vegas Savings (not really doing much with this account, just tired of seeing it at zero)
• $30 to Slush Fund (the money is going to my hair appointment I have next week)
• $30 to Nordstrom credit card

I thought about putting it all toward a credit card payment or all to the Emergency fund, but I decided that putting some in each account was a good idea and I'm even putting a little toward debt too.

I'll update later on my weekly spending and current balances.

- Bank Gal

Labels: christmas savings, debt, emergency fund, savings