As 2013 comes to a close, I am left pondering how my life choices this past year have affected me, and what I have done to better myself. One of my biggest struggles for probably the past 5 years has been money (whose isn't). Graduating from college left me feeling alive and vibrant, ready to take on the world! What I wasn't ready for was taking on the >$50,000 worth of students loans my education cost me. YIKES! To top it off, I have been trying to tackle my mountain of credit card debt as well.
The past year has been a roller coaster of emotions. I landed my dream job, at the most amazing elementary school I have ever been apart of. I moved out to an apartment all by myself, and I continue to work at the cheesecake factory, but I transferred to the store closest to my apartment. These life changes while necessary for both my age, and my career were not the smartest moves financially. Keeping up with my debt while moving out and into a new life was impossible. I had to postpone my loan payments, and pay only the minimum on my credit cards. October my students loans went back into repayment, and now here we are in December and I continue to live paycheck to paycheck, dwindling my bank account down to pennies every month.
I think it's about time my budget got a SERIOUS makeover! I consider myself to be an extremely organized person, to the point of OCD at times, but balancing my personal finances has never been a strength of mine. I have however started (tonight) a pretty thorough spreadsheet to track my expenses. I have also have signed up for a website I found called Ready For Zero which tracks all of my debt in one place, and helps me set goals, and track my progress. I look forward to using these tools to help be gain financial freedom! Like I said, tonight is the start of all of this. Stay tuned for updates on how I manage my spreadsheet, and what I think of the Ready For Zero website.
For the next month my goal is to keep track of my spending by holding onto all of my receipts and entering the amounts into my spreadsheet on a nightly basis. I'd like to give myself until January 31st to live out this goal before re-evaluating how I am spending my money, and assessing my budget. I look forward to tracking and updating my goal(s) regularly using this blog.
In the spirit of the new year, my one and ONLY new years resolution this year will be to figure out how to live within my means so I can stop living paycheck to paycheck. I'd like to begin to focus on the next chapter(s) of my life, beyond living alone in my apartment ;)
