Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Rollercoaster weekend

I got little sleep after work on Saturday, and woke up very early on Sunday. My brother and wifey came by. We chatted a bit. While talking about them and their family, out of the blue, I realized something...

My parents are traveling back to our home country for 15 days starting today for some reason I'm not afforded to know. While they're out, they wanted me to pay for some things. Which I agreed to as long as they deposited the money first. Then they didn't have the money to buy their tickets ($560) until Friday, so I offered to pay the tickets and get refunded on Fri plus any extra bills they wanted paid. Friday came and went, I asked for the payments and they finally made it the following Tuesday. But I only got $600. In between all that happening, I already had to pay for the car insurance which they refund me for as agreed. I pay for the car insurance from my bank account because we needed to set billpay for a discount, and we linked it to mine since we couldn't link it to theirs.

After paying the $40, I told them all that was still missing, including the car insurance. About $700 worth of bills. I know it wasn't happening. So I just left it to them pay for the stuff themselves and stopped following up. Except for the car insurance I did pay. I forgot all about it until Sunday morning. I went back and read my notes and saw the cash movement. Yup. I had let that one slip. I asked my dad if they were planning to pay the rest of the stuff. I asked 7 times. He doesn't know. They will. They'll try. No conclusive answer. So now I know for sure I won't get that. I will consider it their gift for going home. Hopefully they have some fun. But I'm pretty ticked off at myself for not catching that.

I’m $280 behind because of this little mishap. I’ll count this separately from my budget, as this was a limitation I had mentioned for the challenge.

Now, here’s a healthy dosage of good things:
-I bought a shirt for $6.36. It’s nice, plain and boring. But it’s long sleeved and good for layering. I also tried some other clothes, but none of them fit me right. At least I tried.
-I also bought a wireless computer mouse. I’ve wanted one for the past 3-4 months, and finally found a good one for $7.49 on reduced sale.
-I cleaned the closet, thanks to Carla, and got rid of some clothes.
-I haven’t really spent anything in groceries. I might not have to either until this weekend. Success!
-I’m working Friday at my other job at their request, even though I was originally off. I could use the extra money to offset those $280.
-Thanks to my driving habits (ha…, no honestly. I was the only one that qualified for a discount) we qualified for lower insurance premiums. The rate is not finalized or anything yet, but it is scheduled to go down to $222/mo instead of $280/mo.

I am fighting a bit of an internal battle about what to do about the rate change. I could tell my dad the price remained at $280 and just pocket the ~$60 overage. Not for me of course… for their secret EF fund. Their secret EF fund is locked in at $250 (which was what my portion when we sold my car for pieces when it died). I keep forgetting that money exists. OR I could just tell them the rates went down and have them pay $222. What should I do?

There is no way in this side of heaven that they would manage the extra money. As in, they wouldn’t consider it as someone who’s conscious about their money would. They don’t know how the money moves in that house as is, so this ‘extra’ money would just get sucked into the black hole.

16 comments:

  1. I'll skip the bad and focus on the good and their is a lot of good coming out today. A shirt, a mouse and savings on groceries are all awesome and enough to make you happy. Not to mention a discount on insurance. Even more awesome.

    You should funnel the $60 savings into their secret EF in case something like this happens again and you have to cover their bills. It will help in many ways. You won't have to feel bad if they leave bills for you to pay. If they ever run into a true emergency, money will be there to help them and even better is that no matter what happens, none of this will affect your budget. Last point, if an emergency never comes around and you never hand control over of the account to them, come retirement time they will have some sort of retirement savings.

    I really think you should save that money for them.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sorry about the bad stuff. I do like that I can relate to you so much. Something that I haven't shared on my blog because I don't want everyone to know is that my mom asked me for $5,700 the other day. I'm hoping that not too many people will read my comment right now! I'm getting really upset by this and I flat out told her that I wasn't going to help her anymore.

    Let's see how long this will last.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think you should keep that $60 a month in your own savings - it's money reduced because of YOUR driving habits. If you were paying your insurance just for you it would have reduced your bill, not theirs. Sorry that you had to deal with more money problems with your family but you've done great this week on your de-cluttering and good news you get some extra work hours

    ReplyDelete
  4. You have so much going on... Thanks to YOUR driving habits YOU qualified for a discount, therefore it's your money! :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hoo boy I don't even know where to start on this post! Like, how can they afford a trip when you have to help pay their bills? You know I just have to sorta skim over that because otherwise I would get really angry.
    I am in the market for a wireless mouse. I had one that I really loved but then dropped my laptop and it got all bent out of shape. Then I bought a cheapie and of course it didn't last too long. So I'm back with an old one with a cord that I had laying around and the cord continuously bugs me. What make is yours?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mine was an HP Comfort (the BEST mouse I've had to date), but the spring is gone so it doubleclicks randomly. The new one is an Inland (probably a cheapy one), but I figured that'll hold me up for at least a year. Otherwise, I'd go with Logitech or Microsoft. But I wasn't gonna wait for another sale...

      Also... yeah, it'd make you upset. It makes me upset. The truth is scarier than what I allow myself to post. But that's ok! What doesn't kill us makes us stronger.

      Delete
  6. @ Carla, Kim - Even though the savings are mine, I don't really "pay" for the insurance, since I get refunded by my parents. It is really their expense, just routed through my bank. And although I could use the savings... I'm sure they could a lot more than me, if only they knew how to manage their money.

    ReplyDelete
  7. You keep that money you hear me? I will find you, Carla will come with me, you do enough. Save that money foe the next time they have a fiasco. Don't hold your breath. I can say this because I had a father like this, (My mom is not much better)You can't help a sucking chest wound. Good luck!

    ReplyDelete
  8. I think I'm going to have you start paying my bills.
    m.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Keep the money and hold firm on not paying their bills, you're doing good!

    ReplyDelete
  10. I vote don't tell and keep the money too.

    Tagged you in a fun questionnaire post. Hope you can join in. :)

    ReplyDelete
  11. Oops, forgot to tell you something....YOU'VE BEEN TAGGED! Check out my post today!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Wow, I'm so sorry you had such a long weekend. Isn't it crazy that WE teach our parents how to manage money? MY Dad is like that too. He blows the money. But my Mom is really frugal and she always hides money from him. They've been married for 33 years, and my Dad still doesn't know about the secret stash she keeps. I would keep the insurance difference just in case for them. You never know what might come up!

    ReplyDelete
  13. This is wild; I'm so sorry you're dealing with all of this! Best of luck with sorting it all out. I'm with the others who suggest putting the extra $60 into the EF fund.

    ReplyDelete
  14. What a week! Honestly I say you keep the money and put it in your own ef fund because of you they get the discount and truthfully they owe you so much more. Dont feel guilty. Just keep it.

    Judy(yeah that one)

    ReplyDelete