So I ended up getting my car fixed. It turns out that some animal managed to devour a number of important wires and switches. Since it definitely qualified as an emergency and not something that had to do with the age or wear of the car, I didn’t really have a problem spending the money to fix it.

On an unrelated note, the budget that I set up for myself this year is not really working anymore. It’s been breaking down over the last few months and became pretty much unhinged in July. Some allocations are working well, while others are failing miserably. The basic problem is that I have some expenses that are important to me, but I didn’t do a good job in estimating them. Part of this stems from incomplete information or changes in pricing. For example, the cost of allergy serum jumped up from $300 to $500. While my insurance does kick in after my deductible, my budget does not reflect a $400 annual charge for an allergy visit and new serum, since I didn’t start getting shots until recently. When I had a real full time job, there was enough flexibility that I could reallocate funds without having to make any major sacrifices. Given that my spending allocation isn’t very beefy to begin with, along with the fact that it covers many categories including gas and gifts, I am having a difficult time. I’ve read the websites, I’ve read the books, but it still isn’t making things a whole lot easier. I’m trying to step back and work out some goals for the next two years of grad school and plan on tackling it again (perhaps this weekend). We shall see.

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