What To Do With An Extra $120 a Month

I got a big surprise the other day.

For those who don’t know, I work at a library full time.  That’s the job that pays my bills and gives me health insurance and paid time off.  But, I also have a part time job working for a research center on campus.  That’s the job that allows me to network with people in my academic field and it’s helping me get out of debt a little faster, but there are no benefits and no paid time off and the wage is, well, pretty typical of grad school jobs and not all that much more than I made in high school.

That’s all just back story.  The point is that Monday I got a pretty big raise at the part time job.  Like, a 14% raise.  Together with the tiny, tiny raise I’m getting from the library, I’ll be taking home about an extra $120 every month. That’s pretty significant to my budget.

I’m a little bit torn with what to do with that extra money.  My budget is figured out down to the last dollar, which is pretty easy when you commit yourself to not spending anything.  I mean, there isn’t much to account for.  I only have bills for car insurance, cell phone, and rent.  I spend very little on gas.  Groceries are my one fluctuating expense, but I try to keep the total at about $250 a month.  Normally I would just redo my payment schedule to account for this extra money, but I’m hesitating.

I keep things pretty lean.  I have very little savings, I keep almost nothing in my checking account, and I put everything I possibly can toward my debt.  I don’t want to admit it, but sometimes I’m almost reckless about it.  It is still my goal to be out of debt by the end of the year even if I have to open a lemonade stand on New Year’s Eve to do it.  But, maybe this money would better serve me going to savings (I could always throw it at the debt later) or or or [gulp] maybe it would better be spent.  Like on better maintaining my car.

I also thought about just pretending it isn’t there, because things come up every month and I make exceptions for things like drinks and pizza and nail polish once in a while, so in truth I often fall about $100 of my stretch goal, which just means readjusting my chart every few months.  This wouldn’t mean changing my spending; it would just mean more easily reaching my goal each month.

But, this post has become an exercise in figuring out what I want to do, because by the end of it, I’ve decided to readjust my goals to account for at least an extra $100 every month.  I have less than six months left, so I might as well go all out.