Why My February Gets Two Thumbs Down

So many things went poorly in February, that I don't even know where to start... I hate making excuses, but I feel like I should explain why I didn't meet my monetary goals (for the first time since I started this blog) to all of you.

There are, quite honestly, a laundry list of reasons - some that are my fault and others that are not... Here it goes:

1. Bad weather (4+ feet of snow) and that meant four snow days with the man of the house home.  In other words there was too much noise, chaos and requests for attention to work effectively.
2. I had my second death in the family this year, both of which were unexpected and it threw me for an emotional loop.
   
3. One client didn't send me any assignments for 10 days, even though they told me 3 times in that period that I would have an assignment that day.  That took a good $160-180 off of my monthly income.  I'll be invoicing this one tomorrow, but I doubt it will be paid early enough to count.
4. Another client had to make some cut backs which dropped my income by $40+.
5. A third client has two outstanding invoices totaling $150.  This is my fault for letting them slide on the first invoice and continuing to do the second week of work.  They then said that I didn't send them a second invoice, even though I did (at the top of an email labeled "Invoice" that they replied to confirming that they had indeed received it).
6. A fourth client had an emergency that led to a delay in the pay roll, so there's another $10.
7. I burnt out on one particular project because of all the other chaos this month so I cut back my hours with it.

While there's more than that, I think you get the picture.  I came in at a little under $600 for the month (before fees) when I totaled it all up earlier today.  It's slightly lower than I'd expected, somehow my weekly Pay Day totals were off from my private client payments although I'm not sure why.  I should have a good head start on March though, unless my #5 turns out to be my first non paying client.

All in all, if those payments did come through, I'd be pretty close to my goal which is somewhat consoling, but since I've always held to the fact that the only income that counts is what I have in my hands to spend, those payments will just have to count for next month!

I'm disappointed in myself for not being able to pull things together a bit better this month, but I'm definitely inspired to try harder next month and fight through whatever life may throw at me.