The Unexpected

Over the past few weeks, I’ve had several phone conversations with a friend of mine that I’ve done some consulting work for in the past (he lives out of town, so on-site service is difficult).  One weekend, he brought his computer by the apartment, and I worked on it.  Got everything transferred in about 30 minutes.  Add to that another hour or two of phone consulting/troubleshooting, and I’d spent a little time on his stuff, but not exorbitant.

Once he got everything working, he called me for my home address so he could send a check to compensate me for the time I’d spent.  I was thinking that the extra $50 or so would go straight against debt, and thought no more of it.

This weekend, with the funeral and everything else going on, we ended up not getting the mail checked for several days until late Saturday night.  And, there, in the mail was a check.  But it wasn’t $50.  It wasn’t even $100.  It was $600!!

Incredible!  and well timed!  We’ve focused so heavily on debt reduction this month that I was going to have to float a few payments – the electric bill came in for about $50 higher than I had money budgeted for it, and my wife’s cell phone bill came in, and we had to pay the startup, plus 2 months worth of charges.  As well, we were able to cover the added expense of two unexpected trips in a week’s time.

As it sits, we’ll still be able to reduce our debt by $450 out of that check, so that’s where we’re spending the money… 

But the basic idea I’m attempting to communicate is that it is good to have a plan for the unexpected, even if the unexpected is good.