Fiscal year 09 complete

The fiscal year has ended and I spent the two budgets I was closing out down to the penny. Our money guy called my boss, shocked, to let her know I'd spent it all. We weren't sure why he was surprised. I'd given him my spend down plan in advance and as time ticked away sent him many emails outlining things.

I'm taking most of this week to recover from the experience, mainly unpacking the boxes of materials that I purchased and tackling the things my predecessor left in the cabinets. It feels so good to organize and deconstruct the cubicle wall of boxes that has piled up. Though I had thousands to spend I put in extra hours to ensure that each penny was used wisely. At one point my boss told me to relax and just spend*, but I couldn't handle it. When I knew I wasn't getting the best deal I thought of the money taken out of my check and the checks we've had to write the IRS over the years.

I've promised myself that the end of next fiscal year will not be as crazy, at least on the 3.5** budgets I manage. We're meeting with the money guy in the coming weeks to work on the issues he created. I also understand what I need to do to get budget change approvals from the state level. Most of all, I will have a full year to spend according to our plan (vs 9 months) and less money to spend.

My June month end info will be up in the next few days. I ended up putting some of the work stuff on my personal cards. So instead of doing our finances this weekend I spend a bit of time working out reimbursements and getting money to the appropriate accounts.

*she wasn't encouraging being excessive, just not being quite as frugal.
**ARRA funds fit into one of my budgets and require separate tracking.