I am really excited about how August turned out, especially because I spent ten days with my daughter.  We only spent $3K this month, and because it was a three paycheck month we still did well on revenue, netting $3300, which our bank account sorely needed.  For more detailed information see below.

Groceries – We did great on groceries mainly because I ate at my daughters for 10 days.

Dining Out – We went over by $90 but that was fantastic considering the travel and eating out.  My parents paid for most of the meals when they came to visit us, and Kyrston understanding I am on a budget bought food so we could eat in.  I treated her to one $50 meal but other than the travel food, did a good job of not going crazy.

Entertainment – This overage was actually from buying some used books.  Lee and I discovered a really good used book store called the Clackamas Book Exchange and went a little crazy.  Turns out this was a good thing since we need to head to Texas for gate guarding and we like to have lots of books when we do that.

Clothing – As a perk, all PGE employees received permission to go to the Columbia employee store in Portland during their summer clearance sale.  We picked a few quality items at deep discounts.

New Equipment –  While I was gone visiting Kyrston,  Lee purchased a carpet cleaner.  We have had access to a really nice one while here at the lake and Lee found a slightly smaller version of that one with a retractable handle. It fits in our hall closet, and does a pretty decent job of getting the carpet clean. I really should have put this purchase under pets since it is 100% because of Jack.  Again, probably not a purchase we would have made if we would have known we were losing our jobs at the end of the month, but what can you do?

So to level set on where we are at financially, we have roughly $5700 in the bank until we start making money again. It will likely cost us around $1200 to make it down to Texas. Once we get there we have incredibly wonderful, generous friends that we can stay with to keep our expenses low while we wait for a gate and start earning money again. We still have $16K in savings that we can access if we need to, but we would like to start working before the $5700 runs out.  We do have some reccurring expenses (ie: insurance etc ) but hopefully we will get a gate quickly and not lose too much of what we worked so hard for all summer.

In addition to gate guarding I have two professional interviews next week and hopefully more in the pipeline. We will continue to explore other options for making revenue as well.  Thankfully we are healthy, employable, and have flexibility in where we live.  All good things.  My point I guess is that we aren’t destitute, and we will find other work, but it’s important for those thinking of doing this without a recurring source of income to understand these things can happen.  It is real life, just on wheels.

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