With the help of my bestie I went over my budget again. I'm so glad she's amazing about looking at things. It always helps, in my opinion, to have another set of eyes too. My mind was so jumbled last night that I was just seeing a bunch of numbers coalesce together and it looked more like alphabet soup than a budget to me.
Provided we can get the hell outta dodge next week we'll be okay. We'll be tight... and potentially sleeping on a borrowed air mattress for a while... but we'll be okay. And with projected income we'll have just barely enough for August's rent as well. We might have to talk to the complex and pay a small portion of it towards the middle of the month but that's okay. Adrian's loans come again at the end of August and we're planning on paying at least two months of rent to help us get ahead.... finally.
So the next few months are really tight. Healthy eating won't happen right away because, let's face it, healthy does not equal cheap. We'll be staying with my mom, or friends, until closer to the end of July. We'd wait even longer but people coming in for the wedding from out of state are looking to stay with us and if they can't, with the cost of plane tickets and a hotel room, people may start dropping off again. And we don't want that.
Staying with my mom makes it harder to get employment. Driving to Sacramento from the East Bay is fine for an interview or two, but if work must be started then we'd have to be in Sacramento. The positive with staying with my mom is that we'd put less out to live. Sure, I can probably stay with a friend "rent free" but there's food and utilities and just helping out that I'd feel I needed to do because my friends aren't much better off than we are. So I'm weighing those options as we look at things.
Of course the budget will change as we go cross country. I'll eat as little as possible because my tummy doesn't really like to eat and drive anyway. I'm going to try to push it with Adrian and the animals to do 12 hours of driving per day instead of the projected 9. I think that might help us save some time in hotels. I don't know many people along the way or I'd try to stay with friends more. But perhaps we can still stay with my brother the night before we get to California. That saves us at least one hotel room.....
Gas for the trip, according to a trip calculator, is roughly $300. It's 1 day, 22 hours worth of driving. Split into 12 hour days that's 2 MAYBE 3 nights in hotels. Say $75 a night and now our trip total is $525. Add food and if we're careful we can probably do it for $600-$650 total. That's not too bad for a cross country trip! We're also projecting $800 to be safe so if we could be under budget that would just help us out more when we got there.
Of course we'll be hitting McDonald's if we meet Suzi mid-country to say good bye to her.
But you make it work.
I had initially wanted Suzi to make my wedding dress and use my mom's dress in parts to create an all new dress that was "me." Unfortunately I'm not sure that can happen. I'm still going to look into fabrics and maybe I can find a store that has something pretty and red on sale... although I'm guessing regular satin probably doesn't go on sale often. I only need 5 yards.. and a zipper... But if I can't make it work then I still do have my mama's dress. It's not my ideal dress but it's still cute. It fits and would work for what it needs to work for.
We also have a few more things we're trying to sell here. Not too much but if we could sell it all we're looking at maybe another $200 or so. And at this point every little bit helps.
I have a "rewards" card through Chase and I've earned what amounts to about $50 in gas cards. I think I'll redeem those if I can get them here in time. Otherwise I'll redeem them for something else and have them sent to my mom's house so we can use them towards a bed or bills or something.
Moving cross country is stressful enough. Moving, to a new place for Adrian, with health issues, five animals, and getting married all in the same month is ludicrous. But as my bestie said "you don't do anything small do you?"
Go big or go home... I guess.
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