We don’t live Paycheck to Paycheck except for this time of the year. I got my checking account balance, and it’s dropped below $3,000… YIKES!!!
What happened???
Year end and new Year expenses puts us in bit of a financial bind every year. Oh, we have the money in the stock market if we need it, but I hate to cash out stocks to pay for domestic expenses…
The Year end problem is Christmas and 2 December birthdays in my family. And we have 2 cousins with birthdays at the beginning of January. This hits us a bit hard, but then there is the new Year expense of car insurance and we the fact that we pre-pay our cable bill. So the credit card bills for Dec and Jan are usually over an extra $1,000 each!
This is why I’m always excited to do my taxes, I claim zero allowances! So we get a decent chunk of tax money back, and usually my work bonus hits shortly after. I may have to do my kids taxes this year too, for something called “Kiddie Tax”.
How can I prevent this?
The best way to prevent this would be to:
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Pay off the house (Feb!!!)
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Change my tax allowances so I get more during the year.
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Change the way my insurance bill is billed to me.
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Purchase Christmas and December Birthday gifts earlier in the year.
If all goes well, this should be the last year of Year end tightness that we experience.