My Bonus: Status so Far

I've got some good news about my bonus and some bad news.

First the good news: my total take-home bonus was around $2,500 when I had only estimated about $1400! So far, I've spent:

Category	Amount
Vet	$283.95
Entertainment	$54.31
Personal	$221.63
Savings	$1.18
House Repairs	$572.96
Service Charge	$4.00
XX
XX
XX
XX
TOTAL SPENT	$1,138.03
TOTAL RECEIVED	$2,519.83
TOTAL REMAINING	$1,381.80

Now, the bad news. I got a letter from my home mortgage company. They have finished their "review" of my escrow shortage and the total amount owed is $699.44. They even included a stub I can mail back in with full payment if I choose. HA! Thanks for that. Even if I pay this amount in full, my mortgage payment will be increasing from $749 to $825! Without paying any of this shortage amount, my payment will be increased to $899 effective 4/1/14. YIKES!

I phoned them immediately the next business day and asked if I paid a portion of the shortage, would they adjust my monthly payment to be between the $825 and the $899 and they said YES! At least there's a little upside to this, and I have until mid-March to come up with the extra to pay toward the $699 shortage. I am currently thinking of paying at least half (hopefully) to put my new monthly payment somewhere around $860ish (if they do math like I do anyhow). Unfortunately, I will be paying this out of the "leftovers" of my bonus and thus I'm not sure I'll be meeting my goal of hitting the Emergency Fund halfway point yet. There's still quite a bit of February left, so we'll see what happens.