I knew the electric bill was coming up so I went to schedule the payment online today. That's one I normally pay late and I fully intended to pay it on time this month. So I went to the bill bin, found the bill rather quickly, and started to schedule it online. I was rather taken aback at the amount we owed.
The bill said we owed $368 but that I hadn't payed last month. Well, okay I did pay late last month but my payment also had cleared before the billing date so that didn't make a lot of sense. I budgeted $135 for electric this month. I paid $133 last month. That still left me owing $235 this month. Yikes! That's $100 more than I had anticipated.
I went online and scheduled the payment so it wouldn't be late but then I was really curious about the huge difference in what I owed and what I thought I should have owed so I called the electric company. Turns out we actually owe $145 this month and aren't behind at all (I didn't think we were). Yay! I was really excited when I got off the phone and then I rushed really quickly back to the bank website to correct the scheduled payment before it was too late. Whew, got that fixed too.
After all was said and done and I was thrilled to be owing $10 more than I'd anticipated rather than $100 more I looked at the bill and realized it was a bill for October of 2014. Where in the world did that come from? Really on top of things here! And now I'm off to go find my marbles. Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend. Hooray for Friday!
That gave me a giggle! The lack of marbles must have been worrying but you are so well oin top of things generally that the odd glitch is just that - an odd glitch. I'm so pleased you are finding the Amish money book as inspiring as I did.
ReplyDeleteThe really funny thing is that this serious moment of insanity led to me feeling really happy all evening that I didn't owe that extra $100. But that's a bit of crazy in itself since I never owed it in the first place. Ha!
DeleteJust don't think how I sometimes trick myself and think of it as bonus money. I've experienced unexpected bills and then once I got or learned it wasless than I thought, I'd look at it as freed up money. Not smart.
DeleteOh none of that here! This month I have it budgeted to NOT spend $300 so I can have a checking account buffer and start paying all the bills on time from now on. Basically I plan to leave $300 out of this month's zero based budget and then go back to a zero based budget next month. That "extra" hundred dollars made my $300 buffer take a big hit. Now I'm back to plan.
DeleteAnd this is why I have to write paid, the date paid, the check number and circle it before I file an old bill. Otherwise I would do exactly what you did.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I should probably start doing that too huh :)
Deletegiggling! You are a smart woman.