This month, I have a lot of expenses. Because my flat didn’t sell like I expected, I have to pay over $400 a month in condo fees and taxes. This has been the case since March, and I thought it would stop in September. September in France is also taxes time, and I have to pay about $1,000 as per last year’s income. I already paid a bit in May and February, but the amounts were lower.
When the sale of myflat was still going strong, I was not worried about the taxes since I would by then have gotten my check for the flat and covered the tax bill with it.
Now I have to be creative to find the money, as I have been traveling for the past year and a half, and have never had much of an emergency fund to start with.
My French current account holds a grand total of $150, plus the $140 I made yesterday selling my bicycles, $290. I just put some gas in my motorcycle so that’s more like $250 actually.
I am very fortunate to be staying with my mum at the moment, so the rent, utilities and food are all covered for now. I am still $1,100 short for the month!
Why did I put myself in such an extreme situation? Because I don’t like having money sitting on my account. So when I had about $5,000 earning me no interest back in July, I overpaid a loan at 7%, to get a 7% return on my money. I was, after all, getting my flat’s sale money in September! Only when that fell through, I realized how short in cash I actually was.
I am not too worried, since I have some cash in the UK that I do keep for an emergency in my other rental property. So worst case scenario, I can pay the exchange rate and get those Sterling in Euros. The other solution is to ask my mum, and to refund her next month when one of my CDs expires.
I am expecting my income to be pretty low for the next few months so I will try not to reinvest that CD straight away and keep some cash for basic expenses to come, lesson learned!