Trying to make dollars and sense of my budget.

I've been doing online banking for quite a number of years now. There's always a "click here to download" link at the bottom of the page. This allows you to copy your banking activity to Quicken or some other program for easy bookkeeping.

I've never "clicked here to download." What would be the point. The whole reason I bank online is so that I don't have to book keep.

With my recent surgery, renos, dealing with Community Living, and all the other excitement life brings, my mind is feeling a little cluttered lately. At least that's the excuse I'm using for forgetting to make a time slip at work this month. Who forgets to make a time slip? Apparently me. My punishment? No pay cheque this month.

I will get paid for the hours eventually - probably next pay period. Which is a good thing because, coincidentally, Canfor informed Alb that he'd recently been over paid for some vacation time and they will be taking it back next payday. So, you see, God works things out in mysterious ways. I just hope He remembers that double my pay cheque is still less than half of Albs.

And coincidentally, this is the month truck insurance is due, both vehicles need new tires, city utilities were due for 2 houses, Alb's licence needs renewed, the siding for the house needed to be paid for, the tv pay-per-view package is up for renewal. Oh, and I bought a hot tub on a whim at work.

We are very blessed. I know this. However on occassions, such as this month, my blessings require a bit of a numerical juggling act. I set out to do that this morning and logged into my online banking.

Just for fun (you know I lead a dull life when I call banking "fun") I pressed the "click here to download" button. I saved every banking transaction from January 1st to October 17th into a spreadsheet.

Spreadsheets are fantastic inventions, eh? At the click of a button you know that you've spent about $150 on banking fees so far this year. And Tim Hortons - not counting the times we have used cash or Tim Cards - we have visited 102 times and sipped back just pennies short of a thousand dollars. A THOUSAND DOLLARS!! When I think this through, it totally should not shock me. But it did.

I had some other shocks too. Truthfully, too many to list. But let's just say, we will either start making our own wine again or start drinking water. And if I return all the empties, I could probably pay for the new tires.