Great stuff, getting that done; it's always great seeing people prioritize things that are important, so good on you!
Believe me, I know how far that cash can go, a story:
In July, my Credit Union (where I work) was taken over by a larger CU (which is a good thing), but they pay for 2 previous weeks of work (like how most companies operate), whereas my original CU paid for the prior week and the current week of payday. They also paid one week later than my CU. One final insult to injury is that I have an extra $330.00 CAD taken off for tax purposes per pay, thus over a 3 week span, I normally would've gotten 2 paycheques. Instead, I got $330.00 taken off of HALF a pay cheque (due to the pay range being different) and that ended up as less than half of a paycheque, for 3 full weeks. Since I didn't get a full paycheque until a further 2 weeks later, I essentially went 5 weeks with less than half of my usual pay, whereas I normally would've gotten 2-3 full paycheques. This was #1.
Unemployment Insurance (aka EI) claims in Canada last a year, then you must re-apply, if you qualify. My wife, being an ECE and supply teacher, does not get work in the summers, thus she goes on EI, due to the horrific experiences she has had at, "summer camp," with her current company. In 2021, she went on EI in July like she always does and went back to work in September. When she went on Maternity Leave in March of this year, all was good... until July. We were waiting and waiting and needing her pay to help pay bills, because we knew that I would have these issues. Once week 3 of July began, my wife called the government and they said to just, "wait, because if the day has gone by, it should still come." The second pay date of the month was to be July 26th and nothing came in again, so we 3-way called the government. THIS TIME, the agent told us that the EI claim for maternity, was, "part of the claim from last summer, which expired back in June." I would have been great if the 3 people we had spoken to in the prior months had told us this, but alas no one did. It wasn't until the second week of August, did my wife finally get her proper money, only now it was less than before, due to how the amount is calculated. This was #2.
The second Tuesday in July, our dog was due for a teeth cleaning, which we were quoted at $700.00-$800.00 CAD or so. Perfect, my wife put aside half of that in savings and the other half, she would pay with her VISA. Ater a couple of hours of our dog being at the vet, she gets a call, "well in cleaning all of the tarter off, her teeth were loose and flapping in the wind (in other words, the tarter was holding the teeth in place), so we pulled them. It's going to be a bit more money than what was quoted." You bet it was, ***3 TIMES THE AMOUNT***, ended up being around $2,300.00 CAD. This was #3.
Oh yeah and in August, we get a letter in the mail stating that in July, our property taxes had an additional addendum of $275.00 this year <_< (not that, "our taxes went up," they literally were just adding on an amount).
Thank God we had savings, but the entirety of the savings was gutted by mid-August and we have been struggling for air since then.
My CC that I use for family expenses and fuel ONLY, gets maxed-out every 10 days or so, my other CC (that is used for rainy days and balance transfers {I get a 0% interest offer, so it's basically an interest-free loan} for the other CC), has been maxed out with these Balance Transfers as needed (both have a combined balance of $4,000.00, so they aren't large cards at all) and I have a small LOC with my CU that always gets within $100.00 of the max. My wife's only credit is a CC that has a limit of $5,500.00. Up until this happened, the balance NEVER went above $2,100.00, ever. It is now at $4,400.00. She has a car loan that will be paid off in April if she doesn't put anything extra into it until then and the only other loan between the two of us, is our mortgage.
I've had to severely cutback on groceries, drive less (not that I drove a lot anyways), not go out, I cannot buy Christmas
gifts (even something small), I need winter shoes and I can't buy those. The last thing I purchased for myself was a replacement fishing lure on 07/31/22. Just an extra $200.00 A MONTH (not even a pay), would put us in significantly-better shape.
I will be getting a rather sizable tax return in March and all will be good at that point, but until then, it will be a struggle and we have to tread carefully; I get leery not having any buffer or savings, readily on-hand...