Back To "Normal"

So, we had kind of a happy surprise this month. August is the first month since Project Money started (and first month since Owen was born) that I had a normal paycheck. Remember how I started contributing 3% of my check each month to my 401K back in June? Since I also changed my W-4 exemptions, my check was actually over $100 BIGGER this month, even after the 401K came out. This really made me think about how much I’ve missed out over the past few years. I was so afraid to contribute because I thought I’d be hurting for that money every month. Now I didn’t even miss it! I am glad that both Willie and I are now saving for a happy retirement.

Even though my checks are back to normal now, next month will bring more change because we’ll have to pay another $300 more for daycare from then on. After a couple months of that, hopefully we’ll be at our new “normal” and stay there for a while. I’m watching our account balances closely this month to practice having that extra money come out. It’s just too bad we didn’t have more than one month to practice. This is something I wish we had done better before buying our house or before Owen was born. Like I mentioned in one of our earlier blog entries, if we had pretended like we were already paying that mortgage or daycare, or buying diapers and formula, we could have put all that “extra” money to good use back then.