Looking Ahead at April

Mmmm... smell that? It's the fresh clean scent of a new month. Goodness, I do love that new month smell! At each start of the month I save the old past month's budget and then I get to start fresh with a sparkling new budget for the present month. I reset the counter up there to $0 and we get to start all over again.

Last month I did the No Spending Challenge, this month is going to be "catch up" month. I did a pretty good job of keeping things rolling, despite my busy schedule, but out of necessity, I also had to let a lot of things slide. So, I am going to focus on catching up and getting back on track this month. I've got a lot of things that I would like to work on. The financial things are primarily getting more items listed on eBay and Amazon. Around the house I'd like to do some spring cleaning and, once the weather brightens up a little, clean up the yard. Speaking of the yard, I'm also planning on doing some additional gardening this year. I have some prep work on that front to get underway as well. I can't focus completely on house and home though, I also have some other obligations...

Next week I will be pet sitting my sister's dog. He's a sweetheart and I am looking forward to it. That should work out well (if the weather behaves) for yard work. I have a feeling he would be very happy hanging out in the yard with me while I rake and clean up leaves. If the weather is too cold, then I guess he can always accompany me on my indoor spring cleaning!

The following week I will be traveling for business. This should be interesting. While the company covers hotel, food and flight, I've still traditionally spent a fair amount of my own money on these types of trips. I treat it like a working vacation. Fortunately, where I am going there are plenty of free or low cost things to do, so if once the work is done I want to step out on the town, I should be able to do so for very little money. I am really going to have to focus here though to stay in budget.

Finally, as I've mentioned, I'll have part time work from two companies this month. One will be intermittent starting mid-April and the other will be for a week from the last of the month through the first couple of days of May. In other words, it looks like I will have something on my plate pretty much each week. Ah well... it is still far less busy than March and as I peek ahead to May the calendar opens right up!

So, to kick the month off right, I am going to take tomorrow off work! I have a gift certificate for a spa package that I got for my birthday. I am going to use a portion of it for a massage and a pedicure tomorrow afternoon and the rest of the day I will just kick back and do what I please. Who knows? I might even start some of these catch up projects!


Photo by: afsilva