Risk proof your life they said…
It’ll be great they said…
If things go wrong you’ll be peach keen financially they said…
The problem is sometimes something goes wrong, and other times lots of things go wrong… all at once… right before Christmas.
This has been my last few weeks.
Part one: So long, old friend…
I knew she was on her last legs, but I was hoping that she could squeak out another 5 – 10 years. Alas, it was not to be, and when the logic board went on my computer I knew that she was destined for the scrap yard.
The thing about a computer finally dying is that it shouldn’t have been a surprise, but I sure hadn’t prepared for the cost.
I have to have a computer (or so I’ve decided).
And so buying one happened, and honestly it was fun! I had a little money set aside.. not enough for the full cost, but enough to take the edge off. The rest was covered by a surplus from the last gig.
Sure, I wish I could have spent it somewhere else, but now I have this beautiful new machine and I was pretty happy with the whole process.
If only it had stopped there…
Part two: drop me once shame on you… drop me a thousand times…
I drop my phone all the time, how was I supposed to know that this time it would be different?
Well… it was, and now the screen looks like the picture…
Not all the time, but a lot of the time.
I have been wildly inactive on this one, mainly adapting to my phone’s new ‘quirk’ as part of my life. This isn’t the best policy, except that I just gave Apple a bunch of money and I don’t want to give them more.
Plus… it is impossible to get an appointment at a Genius Bar in Toronto. Maybe I’ll go when I’m back out West.
Part three: The straw that broke the camel’s back
I go through a lot of headphones, but I really wish my current pair hadn’t picked this week to die.
I was trying to read a text on my squiggle screen when I heard the left ear start to cut out. Can a squiggle screen be contagious? Do all of my electronics have a disease?
It wasn’t a great week.
Part four: Just when you think you’re out….
A year ago I celebrated American Thanksgiving with a mouth full of cloves, and an ice pack strapped to my insanely sore mouth. I was rewarded with an emergency root canal.
Good times.
This year, I made it three days past Thanksgiving before a tooth started acting up.
2 sleepless nights.
8 gallons of water.
So many Advil.
A visit to my favourite dentist later…
And another root canal was scheduled.
Epilogue: Limping to the finish line
I’ve really tried to plan ahead in case something goes wrong. I have emergency funds, and I save ahead for the big stuff that I know will break. But sometimes lots of things go wrong, all at once… and it’s not fun.
Paying off my last credit card bill was a stretch. I had to pull cash from lots of places to make sure that I limped to the end of the year without a balance.
But I did it, and I guess that’s got to be enough.
It’s all well and good to make plans, and to decide how things are going to be, but at the end of the day a financial plan isn’t there to be executed to the letter. How fun would that be? It’s there so that it can be flexible enough to suit your actual life (you know… the one that you’re currently living). It’s there to make sure that even when you have a really bad couple of weeks you can still limp to the finish line.
So I’m gonna go ahead and call this year a financial success. Not because I increased my net worth in a huge way (because I didn’t), but mainly because I somehow made it, despite some pretty significant financial hits.
And to celebrate I’m going to share some of what my financial year looked like with all of you! #holidaymiracle. Since I firmly believe that no one really wants to talk about personal finance during the holidays I won’t force you to think about your money. We’ll just focus on my money instead… and how I’m sending it out in the world.
So, be pumped for that… and pour one out for all of my crumbling stuff.