Dear Readers (if indeed I have any readers),

I do most humbly and sincerely apologize for taking such a long and unannounced leave of absence from my daily $$ posts.  As you know, I spent two weeks driving my mom across country and, while there, visiting with my brother and his family in New York City and my sister and her family in the greater Boston area.

I flew home on Thursday, May 8th, and hit the ground running.  The Husband turned 73 on Friday.  On Saturday, The Daughter and I worked all morning and into the afternoon at a school function; Saturday afternoon I watched The Son’s team get skunked in a Mother’s Day tournament; and Saturday evening I chaperoned at The Daughter’s semi-formal school dance until after midnight.  Sunday found me at a very, very early baseball game and then came a mad and stressful dash to get prepared for The Husband’s birthday party Sunday evening with all of his children and grandchildren.

Mom’s Taxi Service duties certainly didn’t ease once the week started.  The Daughter’s got a role in the Senior Class Play this weekend, as do several of her classmates.  So far this week I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time driving and waiting on people who need to be driven here, there, and everywhere.

On top of it all, I caught some kind of stomach bug from my mom during our trip.  Most of that is gone now but I can still feel some of the lingering effects.  And I think I might have strep throat — or some other bug making me feel less than great.

As for blogging, I hope to be able to go back and reconstruct my missing $$ days as well as get back to daily postings.

I’ve learned a few valuable lessons during this chaotic time.  Though they’re not new lessons, they have served to strengthen my resolve to find better ways to deal with future chaotic times.

One, it is absolutely vital that I log all expenses into my YNAB program every single day.  The activity only takes 5 minutes total — including firing up the computer, starting the program, and entering the data.  No matter how busy I am, I would think that I could manage to find a measly 5 minutes each day.  If I don’t log my expenses daily, it’s just too easy to make mistakes and forget transactions.  Particularly cash transactions.  I so very rarely make cash purchases — and the vast majority of those times are when I’m traveling.  Therefore it’s particularly important for me to log my expenditures on a daily basis when I’m traveling.

Two, daily expenditure tracking helps keep me honest.  Traveling and/or vacationing is a time when it’s particularly easy to let spending get out of hand.  Likewise stressful times, busy events such as holidays and visiting family are times when my grip on expenses loosens.  In situations like these, it’s easy to overspend and easy to hide the effects of my spending on my overall budget.  But if I take the time each day (see above) to log my expenses into my YNAB program, I can’t fool myself.  A simple mouse click takes me from the program’s register to the budget overview — and the budget overview is so simple and clearly laid-out that there’s simply no hiding from how the day’s expenses have impacted my monthly cash flow.

Taking a break from blogging has made me realize how much I’ve gained from the daily activity of accounting for expenses.  Also, I miss it and look forward to getting back into the routine of my daily posts — and irregular additional posts.  So if you’re a reader, thanks so much for sticking with me during my absence.  If you’re a new reader, welcome and I hope you’ll find my material interesting, insightful, or helpful.

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