The Fiscal Year Cycle

I can’t be the only one who has a defined cycle of my fiscal year, right?  Right?

For me, the cycle starts in about September.  September and October are when we first start getting word on stuff like how much money do we get to shelter in TSP/IRA/HSA accounts and how much the insurance company is going to screw us this year.  If we’re lucky, we’ll know whether or not we’re getting a COLA and whether or not that’s going to cover the screwing by the insurance companies (hint, it usually doesn’t).  If we’re not lucky, we get three or four more months of fuckery by Congress while they try to pass an appropriations bill. 

November means open season.  This is the time of the year where we realize that hindsight is a bitch and we’ve been paying too much.  But, there’s still time to right the ship.  In this vein, we’ll likely be switching to a HDHP with an HSA this year.  November is also the time that I realize how much I hate mindless consumerism.  And the mall.  The mall sucks. 

Late December is the time to shake off the holiday spending hangover and start making changes to my contributions, withholdings, and allotments.  By this point, I have a number in mind that my net paycheck should hit.  From there, it’s just a matter of tweaking things until I’m in that ballpark. 

January is the beginning of tax season!  I’m a total tax geek.  My first job in high school was as a tax preparer.  I was 18, and looked 15 on a good day.  I’m sure that it was unnerving to have a little girl doing your taxes for you.  I’ve considered going back and doing that as a side gig.  For my own taxes, I’ll start filling in what info I have by the first or second week of January based on last paystubs and whatnot.  But, it’s usually the middle of February to early March before I’ve got all the paperwork I need to actually file.  This gives me plenty of time to look over my taxes and see if there was anything that I could have done better and make those changes going forward. 

April and May is when I start fine-tuning my budget for the following year.  My budgeting method can best be described as zero-sum budgeting on steroids (or crack, according to my husband).  I try to have my budget forecasted out 12-18 months at any given time, so I start working on my upcoming budget right after tax season ends.  My first goal is always to cut 1% off of expenses for the year.  Some years I’m able to do so and some years….not so much.  Every cut in expenses is balanced by a cut in net pay.  Remember how I said that I had a number in mind when determining contributions and withholdings and shit?  This is where that number comes from. 

Once the budget is balanced and I’m satisfied with it, I run the working plan for the upcoming year.  This worksheet is part checking register, part spending plan, and part to-do list.  It generates a list that looks an awful lot like an old-fashioned checking register.  The transactions are all hypothetical at this point.  I juggle transactions around, as needed, until everything is being paid during the correct pay period.  Nothing’s late and I know if and when I’m going to have a cash flow crunch.  It allows me to keep as little excess cash in my checking account as possible.  I try to have that done by 1 June at the latest. 

That brings us to the doldrums of the fiscal year.  From June until September there’s really not a whole lot that needs to be done other than to just keep on keeping on.  For someone who loves playing with their money this part of the year is EXCRUCIATING!  There’s only so much planning one can do without concrete numbers.  Running a thousand different what-if scenarios will drive one up the wall.  This year, I’m passing the time by researching ways to cut down or eliminate single-use plastic and paper products at my house or at least pay less for the ones that I can’t convince the rest of the family to give up.