Ouch! The Checkbook is Bleeding

I updated our checkbook with Quicken yesterday, after having been out of town for a few days, and I got a little shock. I forgot to add a big automatic payment and a big check, so my balance was off by about $600.00! Darn. This has been a typical mistake I have made. I love using Quicken, and I have scheduled lists of items to debit each month, but every now and then I forget to enter something like the big check my husband wrote, or I accidentally delete an item. So my whole checkbook is thrown out of whack and we are in the red, so to speak. I hate it when this happens.

So now do I pull money from savings to cover the deficit, or do I use the plastic? Neither is a great option, but the latter attitude is what I am trying to change. Presently, I am waiting on word from our church if they are able to help with some of the costs of our emergency trips out to see our sick loved one in another state which has been a big drain on our savings and checking. Our church's deacon's fund is designed to help with these sort of emergency situations and I have been loathe to ever ask for help because I've always been a very proud person. Even when my husband was out of work, I refused to accept help from our church. My pastor challenged me on this, but I couldn't bring myself to take him up on his offer. I thought of the deacon's fund as if it were for "poor" people.

But looking back, I decided that my attitude was stupid, because we really could have used help then. So I learned from that, and when one of our kids was hospitalized in a another city for a month, we asked for help with the gas we were spending traveling between our house and the hospital which was an hour and a half away. They were more than happy to defray this cost, which was way out of our normal budget.

Anyway, I have learned to not be so proud. Pride keeps us from honesty. One of the best results of my new admittance that I have not handled money well is that I convinced my husband that we needed objective financial advice. Our previous financial planner was actually an insurance salesman. So we have great life insurance, but we didn't get the kind of advice we really needed, like "Where is your emergency fund?" or, "Stop using those credit cards NOW!" So I sought out independent financial advisors, and we met with two of them to interview them. We liked both CFPs a lot. The first one said he was more of a specialized planner, dealing with end of life issues. The second one was more willing to work with us on short-term planning. But we had to decide if we were selling or moving or whatever before she could really give us good advice. So we will probably go back in September or October.

In the meantime, I am saying no to the pesky plastic thing, and dropping dimes into my jar. Happy saving! I feel freedom coming....