Personal Monthly Cash-flow Update

About 2 months ago, I created a high-level "back-of-the-napkin" monthly cash-flow spreadsheet. I forget if I've ever published it here.

While revisiting it just now, I noticed that the May 2007 short-term asset amount on this cash-flow spreadsheet is actually significantly lower than my current short-term checking account balances. However, after adjusting for a one-time event occurred that gave my current short-term checking account balance a big boost, my gigantic tax refund, I am actually $5K *under* my target bank account balance at this point in time.

What happened?

- I dumped another $1K worth of work into my car that I'm hopefully selling this Sunday when a prospective buyer is flying into down from Sacramento. If a BMW from 1998 requires $4K worth of work since I bought it in December 2006, I can't imagine the maintenance cost on the ol' 2004 E46 silver M3 when its 8 year-old anniversary rolls around.

- Around $1500 was spent in Dallas when I went for training. I'll see the vast majority of that money come back to me as work-related expenses, though.

- Trip out to Chicago, Valentine's Day, and plenty of other people's farewell dinners contributed to a lot of eating out, going out, and burning lots of cash quickly. Total equals nearly $1500 as it is.

- I don't have a firm grasp of my new job's monthly take-home pay. Today, I just saw my April take-home pay.

I started the 2nd week of April, 2007. However, if they had paid me for the whole month of April, then the take-home pay is significantly less than even my most conservative estimates-- anywhere from $300-$700 less, per month.

If the April 2007 take-home pay reflects the 3 weeks I was employed in April, vs. a total of 4, then the full monthly take-home pay is significantly than I'd anticipated-- anywhere from $500-$1000 more. Believe me, I could really use the extra cash-- not necessarily to spend, but to create a budget cushion.

- This doesn't account for car maintenance or end-of-year flurry of holiday activities. Maybe I'll just stay put this year.

Additionally, another $800-$1000 of short-term obligations will need to be paid off. soon This was for trip expenses while visiting my college buddy down in San Diego, a few suits I bought on sale, along with some new computer hardware components to replace existing components. I haven't had a new suit since early college days, and the hardware components, I feel, are vital, considering it'd minimize exposure to extremely expensive and time-wasting data catastrophes, like the one that happened last year where I essentially lost around 50% of my vital data.