Using the Emergency Fund

Rereading my last post, I can't help but to laugh: I totally jinxed myself... We had to use our emergency fund, there was no way around it.

Lets catch you up to speed here. G took Mocha for her appointment last week and the results where good and bad. Good: no masses besides the one on her leg. Bad: cancer cells were found in her liver and spleen. They had her in for surgery the next day. She has been recovering well from her surgery even though they had a remove a large amount of skin from her leg. But the fact they were able to do the surgery at all is good news as they told us they may have to remove her entire leg: which is where, given her other conditions, G and I were going to draw the line (that was a really really tough conversation for the both of us to have). We are expecting to know what stage cancer she has sometime this week, to which they will recommend the next steps for her recovery.

We spent a little under $3000 on our dog this month, I had budgeted $500. Yes, this is an extremely bitter pill to swallow but it could have been worse. First thing 'extra' to get cut from the budget was our LOC payment, we moved over the minimum amount due so that was out of the way until next month - it is sitting at $9500 at the moment. Next thing we needed to get taken care of was about $1000 worth of expenses from G's trip up to La Ronge. He was in charge of paying for his hotel, which we were not expecting until he got there. Yes this will be 100% reimbursed but it was still not budgeted for and was sitting on a credit card. We paid this off, being able to cash flow this expense from our account (which was our plan since learning about this curve ball). Last but not least was the vet bills. This is were money was starting to wear real thin in our account and I knew no matter how I looked at it or calculated there was no getting around taking from our emergency fund. So we moved over $2000 from our $5000 EF. That on top of the $500 I already had budgeted and cash flowing the few hundred we had left, we were able to pay off the vet bills in full. Our chequeing account is sitting just a little below $700, so we still have a little bit of a buffer as the month is not over yet.

I will say during this really difficult time, I am so glad we didn't have to worry about money or the cost of getting her healthy. We just sort of rolled with the punches and stayed strong. It wasn't until we had Mocha in the backseat of our car and were on our way home after the surgery that I started bawling. All the emotions I was able to keep in check over the last few days came flooding in all at once. But once I let out all that emotion I could finally listen to G saying how good Mocha is recovering and financial, we got this. The emergency fund served its purpose, and we will begin to rebuild it once again so when the next round of punches comes our way, while its kicking our ass emotional, it won't be hurting us financially.

Mocha and her cone of shame :P 

- M