Absorbing Costs & Playing Musical Accounts

Immediately upon returning home last night, I entered the paycheck for today into Budget and began rejiggering my virtual envelopes to cover the Metrocard expense, figuring it was better to account for it in some way than to wait for my FSA reimbursement check in a state of confusion. I covered the expense pretty easily--a leftover $20 from the previous pay period, this paycheck's $40 "unexpected expenses" allocation, $16 worth of skimming, done.

Then I set out to find some money for the trip this weekend, my eBay plan having been an abysmal failure. I figure I need money for getting to the airport today (bus), getting home on Sunday (cab, probably), for covering the (relatively few) meals that won't be related to wedding festivities, and...for anything else that might come up. After assembling that sum (mostly, I co-opted this week's contributions to the clothing and haircut envelopes), I packed, put some airport snacks together (the hell I'm paying $12 for a disgusting sandwich), and spent some time catching up with my Internetting.

Then K came home. He'd thought to stop and get the mail, and there--lo and behold--was my FSA reimbursement check.

Hmm.

What I decided to do is this: I'll deposit the check into my Bank of America savings account, the one that holds my Keep the Change transfers and that will now hold the $100 float fund. I'll transfer the balance over $100 to my savings account over at ING.

I'll withdraw $120 of the $140 I put together for the trip from my checking account today. Hopefully, I'll come in under--but if I do, I'll need to figure out whether to "reimburse" my spending envelopes or to use it as an opportunity to save.

I'll update on this when I return--probably not before, though we can certainly hope that the hotel room K's parents have kindly gotten for us comes fully equipped with internet access.