After days of rain, the sun peeked out for just a minute Tuesday evening. I have never been so happy to see the sun in my entire life. Though the city of Houston and its surrounding areas have a long, long road to recovery from the devastating flooding of Hurricane/Tropical Storm Harvey, I am very grateful to report that Lennox and I came through unscathed. We got a very small amount of water in our apartment during the worst of the deluge — literally just puddles — but they were from drainage issues, not floodwater, and they receded almost immediately. We have no damaged property (including our car), and were safe and relatively comfortable the entire time.
We lucked out.
We are making room in our September budget for some charitable giving for organizations helping with the aftermath of the storm.
August was a difficult month all around, though. My anxiety spiraled out of control again, and I have been having panic attacks almost every day. I had to start back into weekly therapy, which is a very large expense (we pay completely out of pocket as our insurance does not cover extended talk therapy). Our savings rate will be reduced to almost nothing until I can scale back to monthly sessions. Trust me when I say that this is disappointing on a lot of levels.
Anyway, in August I:
- Refilled my dried parsley spice jar for $0.28. Herbs and spices from the bulk aisle are one of the best grocery bargains that exist.
- Got a free sample of Kotex pads in the mail.
- Used a Redbox discount code to rent a Blu-ray disc. I watched “The Fate of the Furious” for $0.81! That’s a LOT of over-the-top car chasing and a whole bunch of heavily muscled leading men for less than a buck.
- Was actually able to use a coupon at Jo-Ann Fabrics (their coupon game is completely rigged, but that’s a whole other rant). I got 40% off a purchase of muslin that I would have gotten regardless, but it was nice to get a discount.
- Only bought a few extra snack-type dry goods and three more gallons of water to augment what we already had on hand for our hurricane kit before Harvey hit. Panic buying and hoarding can be expensive.
- Being in the middle of a natural disaster meant eating no take out, and mostly from the pantry. Not enough to compensate for lost income, but at this point probably anything that isn’t flood-related is a positive point.
- Read 13 eBooks and 2 physical books from the library, and 2 free Kindle books. It was a slow reading month for me; I was mostly too anxious to concentrate.
I just hope my crazy ass has a more productive and less emotionally taxing September.