On the face of it, it seems crazy to call this month's review of my finances, "Rejoicing". Once again I have spent far more than my income. Once again something broke down and had to be replaced - this time my iPhone. Once again I have overspent on food. I brought forward my planned car service from December to August because if I have to sit and wait for my car to be ready I'd rather sit outside in August. Once again I have far less money at the end of the month than I had at the beginning.
But the point is that although most of those things could be called "unplanned expenditure" the truth is that it is all expenditure which I have planned for - what a wonderful example of gobbledygook! The point is that I didn't plan for my mobile phone to break down any more than I planned for the laptop to die in June or the fridge to develop a terminal illness in July but, sure as eggs is eggs, things will break down and Murphy's Law says that they will do so at the most inconvenient time. I know that my car will have to be serviced, so each month a little is set aside for the purpose - in fact I had set aside enough in eight months because there was no extra work to be done but I had saved extra in case of extra work. I could even take the opportunity to buy extra meat when that opportunity arose.
So I can rejoice. Money is not just to be saved but to be used wisely. In months when I have had less demands on my purse I've set some aside so now I can rejoice.
But I can still hope that September doesn't hold too many nasty surprises!
