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By Guest Columnist Toby Nix
I said that to myself the other day, verbatim. It’s not the first time I’ve ever said that to myself and it probably isn’t the last time.
But this was the only time I ever remember doubting it right after I said it.
You see, my wife went a few months without a paycheck a few months ago. Being a woman of many skills, she found ways to make money in the meantime, but we still found ourselves in a hole. And we’ve been trying to dig out of that hole ever since.
I think we all, at least anyone reading anything I write, live paycheck to paycheck. Or have seen the light at the end of the tunnel move further and further away. So I’m preaching to the choir, so to speak.
I know that “Something will come up, something always comes up.” is not a financial strategy you’re likely to find in a Dave Ramsey book. And it’s not the most stress-free way to live, but it’s how most of my adulthood has been.
I’m not good with money, and I usually don’t have any. Not sure if that’s a chicken and the egg type situation or not.
In this case, the voice in my head told me there was likely nothing that was going to come up. There are only so many times divine intervention might show up and save the day.
I paid the bills I needed to pay. As long as we have a house we will be OK, and if we have power to said house, we’re better than most of the world without having another penny to our name.
After house and electric were paid, it was shaping up to be a pretty rough stretch to payday. It was such that I didn’t even want to log into my bank account to see what we would be working with.
It took me a few days to log in to my banking app to survey the damage. The first thing that struck me odd was none of the numbers were colored red. Probably just meant something hadn’t posted yet.
But I saw the house note, power bill and auto insurance were all present and accounted for. I started scrolling down to see what was missing that would make those black numbers red once it hit.
It wasn’t something that was missing that caught my eye, it was a direct deposit I wasn’t expecting from my employer. It seems this was the week they paid out for accumulated comp time.
It wasn’t much, but it was breathing room. Unexpected breathing room.
Look out Ramsey, I have a new financial plan and my book won’t take near as long to read:
Something came up. Something always comes up.
Toby Nix is a local writer, guitarist and investigator for the Coweta County Sheriff’s Office. He is the author of two books, “Columns I Wrote” and the newly released “A Book I Wrote.” He can be reached at tobynix@yahoo.com.