Ourselves First, The Piper Second

"Time to Pay the Piper"          "Paid Ourselves Before the Piper""Piper First, Us Second"          "Going For Broke in November"

The above are four titles that I had first considered for this post.

Obviously, I need to improve upon my SEO skills if I want to attract more eyeballs to my posts and thus fingers that click on ads.

I had also contemplated for a bit why I should even share this, but then it dawned on me that it is so obvious.

The reason is that, despite the massive amount of bills that I am paying this week, month, year and forever, I am Paying Ourselves First before anyone or anything else.  $400 to my Roth IRA and a $250 check to my wife's.  The market may plummet this coming week or it may shoot up.  It will probably do both depending on what day, but I will be investing in it either way.  

I've been extremely busy at work and in my personal life too this past week.  Too busy to post anything and really too busy to even want to.  One thing that I did this week was ate like a king, but that is a post for another day.  

I could recount my week like a diary, which included several high-stakes meetings relating to business projects in the town where I work and even included traveling downtown to see and hear my son play with a jazz band in downtown Chicago late this past Tuesday night at a jazz club.

Also, it was Halloween this past Wednesday night which was fun and raised some interesting financial factoids, as well.

So many financial things came to mind that I want to post about including these five:

1. The insane amount that the mostly corrupt politicians are spending this election season;
2. Why we get thirty year mortgages;
3. Now we can contribute six grand to our IRA; 
4. Are you in the 28%?; and
5. I will invest $50 per day this month.

You'll just have to stay tuned, as I intend to write quicker, shorter and more concise posts in the future.  I also intend to post these to www.moneymensch.com instead of this blogger platform.  I purchased the domain about five months ago but have not done anything with it.  Consider it another case of my procrastination, but a good goal for me to attain in 2019.

Anyway, the point of this is to share that I am experiencing some Pain of Paying early this month

but still feel Privileged to Pay.  

Besides the $1,200 that automatically leaves our account on the first of every month ($800 mortgage payment and $400 to our daughter's 529 account) and the several hundred in ongoing expenses like utilities, purchasing things that neighbors and relatives sell us as fundraisers, groceries, gasoline and whatnot, I am paying out several thousand dollars this weekend.

The amount in our checking account will be flying away forever is impressive for a middle class family like ours.

The total damage is about $6,700 as detailed in the top graphic.  Three grand to college, $1,350 for paying off half of a trombone that we recently purchased for our daughter, three hundred for my credit card, another two hundred to Kohl's, two hundred for insurance on the old minivan and so on and so forth.  I forgot to add in the Subaru lease payment, which I will make tomorrow.  

I am mailing a check for $1,350 today

Back to the point.

I realize that several thousand more dollars will leave our account than enter it this month.  It will be even worse next month, when the four of us will be going on a journey to the desert meaning flying into Vegas, spending a night at the Flamingo and dining well, renting a car the next day to travel to Lake Havasu, where we will be staying in a nice hotel suite and visiting with my wife's father and his wife for the better part of a week.  Two meals out every day, with a breakfast buffet at the hotel.

We'll be staying at the Flamingo for a night next month.

I would rather post about it afterwards than before, but suffice it to say that the trip will cost us plus or minus four grand over the span of six days in late December.  The air fare alone is about $1,500 for the four round-trip tickets and our hotel reservation is at about $800.  I have not yet reserved a car.

Just contemplating this, I am beginning to fear a fifteen thousand spending/month in December.  Myself being Jewish and my wife being Episcopalian, we mostly celebrate Christmas, which is far more flashy and fun than Hanukkah (truth be told), but I still purchase Hanukkah gifts for our children and my four nieces and one nephew.

December is usually a big spending month for us, as it is for most Americans, without the prospect of sending another $1,350 to pay off a trombone, three grand to our son's college and then another four grand on a trip.

I do not consider the trip money poorly spent; quite the opposite.  I am very much looking forward to it, as we all are.  I am just not looking forward to paying for it along with everything else.  Hence the thought of "Going For Broke" in my head right now.

And the thoughts of how I need to launch an e-commerce business and make some dough from it in the coming year.  After all, one cannot continually spend more than one earns and expect to make it ahead in this world.

But before our checking account balance plummets this early November from nearly fifteen grand to half that amount in the first seven days of the month, I am proud to report that I continue Paying Ourselves First.

Even before the Piper.