What I Did This Past Weekend And My Plan For Going Forward

After getting the notice that my hours were cut I went shopping. Yes, shopping. I stopped at Target and spent $90 on "stuff". That sounds worse than it really was. $75 was on a new vacuum. I've had bad vacuum karma this past year and I finally decided to just buy a new vacuum. Cut hours or not, my current vacuum situation at home was getting desperate. I'd been borrowing my neighbors vacuum a couple times a month for a good deep clean and using my little excuse for a canister vacuum in between. It was just not doing the job. I walked into Target to get some toiletries, saw the vacuum on sale (I had also checked it out online first) and I snapped it up and dropped it into my cart. I had been planning on buying one this upcoming weekend, I just pushed the purchase forward by a week.

I know am the proud owner of a vacuum that has sucked up more dirt and dog hair than I realized was still in my carpets. I have a cleaner and fresher smelling house. I truly feel a lot better now that I can vacuum at 2 AM, really I do. Just so you know, I also like to iron. I iron my pillow cases.

I also made some phone calls and picked up about 5 days of "extra work" at my second job, some of it is on weekends, some of it is on weekdays, it's piece meal, but it's extra work. It is a help right now.

My boss has not sat down with me to go over my new schedule. I really need a schedule so I can find ways to make up my cut hours. Part of our discussion last week was that I agreed to the temporary reduction in hours provided I had some flexibility in setting up a schedule, which he agreed to. He is out of the office today and tomorrow, so what I'll probably do is set my own schedule and give it to him. What I don't want to do is have to work 5 days at abbreviated hours, I'd prefer to have at least one full day off during the week if I'm going to be working on the weekends. This will give me a full day to run errands, schedule doctors appointments, get laundry done, all those fun things.

I have made the decision to not make myself too crazy this week about the change in my work schedule. I was getting really bitter on Sunday about that and some other stuff that has been going on in my life. I have some ideas floating around, I'm keeping my ears and eyes open for other opportunities, but I'm not panicking and trying to get this all sorted out NOW. I think a little "off time" this week will do me a world of good. I have some books and dvd's to go on half.com or e-bay, I'll list them this week. I'm going to finish the redecorating of my bedroom, I'm going to really clean and organize my house (Fall Cleaning or Spring Cleaning if you are in the Southern Hemisphere!), and then I'm going to sit down and write out the things I need (personal, home, work, car) and the things I want, look at my budget and take it from there.

Without crunching all the numbers, I should be able to meet all my fiscal obligations with the reduced hours. No extras or very very few extras, but I should be able to meet my fiscal obligations without having to dip in to my E-fund. I'll double check all that this weekend as well and make sure I don't have any surprise bills in the near future.