Allocated Monies, Allocated Problems

This morning I worked out exactly how much money I can spend between now and the end of the month, and still have enough money to pay my tithing- $41.71. The tithing thing is important; I haven't paid it in a solid year and a half and there's a tithing settlement party thing at church tomorrow, and so I really want to get on it, though I'd have a lot more money if I ignored it that doesn't seem like a good idea. So, $41.71.

The plasma center recently changed the way they pay, or not changed the way they pay they still load money onto a debit card they provide you, but they changed the service provider, which means that we got new cards, and the old cards can still be used until they run out of money, but they aren't having any new money loaded onto them. $41.71 is what I have on my old card. And that's the most it will ever have again. The new card, meanwhile, should have enough money on it to cover all the tithing I haven't paid, including the money I'm making on said new card itself, next Tuesday.

I went grocery shopping today, planning on just for the week but seeing enough bulk sale to make it instead for the whole rest of the month-- $41.62. Which sounds like I could afford it, with 9 cents to spare, but it's more complicated than that.

There's a 50 cent fee for using your card for grocery shopping, for some reason. Just groceries. Not at restaurants or whatever. So it may seem like I had 9 cents to spare, but I was actually 41 cents over, and had to... well, the 50 cent fee gets charged after the fact so it's not like it would have declined, and I've had a negative card balance before just that always gets resolved by the time I check it next, because in between shopping and when the fee was applied I'd gone and donated plasma again, so. I really don't know what would happen if it got stuck like that, so I had to fall back on my bank card which doesn't have a grocery fee.

There is a way to transfer money electronically from plasma debit card to bank balance, but I'm not sure if there's a fee for that. Still I think it'd be the best option to drain the bottom of that particular money smoothie. 

All that math neglects the minor fact anyway that the end of the month, still, there's a total of $4.50 additional that I need in my bank account, that I have to scrounge up somehow.

So for my birthday, a good gift would be $55ish (not counting the tithing I'd need to pay on top of that.) Or this shirt. Whichever. (Do grandma and grandpa still give money for birthdays? Man, maybe I didn't need to be so stingy. What a godsend.)