On Money, Part III

It's Friday, I just got paid and I'm still broke! Why does this keep happening to me? I'm not an extravagant spender so I don't understand where all my money is going! I am on a strict budget until I have enough to pay my tax bill this year (the first time I've ever owed the government, and hopefully, the last!) and, for the most part, I have been sticking to it (I wish I knew how to quit you, Dunkin' Donuts!) so I feel like I should have more money to play around with, instead of it all going into savings. Or maybe I'm just being a whiny little baby because I need some retail therapy and I forgot to add that into my budget. Oh well, there's always next month's budget.

On Money, Part II

It's day eight of my new, strict budget and I can't stave my addiction to Dunkin' Donuts coffee! I spent $1.72 Monday thru Friday, and while that may not seem like much, that adds up to $34.40 for the month, and that's coming out of my budgeted $100 for Miscellaneous activities, only leaving me $65.60 for any 'emergencies' that crop up. Otherwise, I'm on track, I've managed to stay out of Target and the video store, relying on Netflix, my dvr queue and basic cable to keep me entertained and I've resisted going out to fast food joints to spend needlessly on food that I won't really enjoy all that much anyway. But I still feel like I could be doing more, saving more, cutting more corners, which is next to impossible, since I don't have anymore money to save! Not making a lot really curbs my desire to have several healthy savings funds. Ultimately, I do feel good about the budget I made up and I feel I'll have a measurable amount of success with it. Now, if I could just keep my butt out of Dunkin' Donuts!

On Money

It's a new month, so it's time for a new budget. I always start the month with ambitions to be fantastically frugal and somewhere between the astronomical gas prices and my inability to stay out of Target every Tuesday when new dvd's are released, that typically goes out of the window by the second week of the month. But now that I have an epic tax bill to pay ($821 which is epic to me because I don't make a lot of money), I am forced to save $205 per check until the beginning of April, so I'm hoping this will instill the discipline I need to become a successful saver.

I don't know why I became so irresponsible with money once I became an adult. As a child, I understood the concept of delayed satisfaction; I saved my money because I liked how it felt to just have money in my 'pocket.' If I wanted something I had little difficulty saving until I could afford it. Hell, my mom would sometimes borrow pocket money from me and I was in grammar school!

Then I turned 18, went away to college and went crazy. I forgot the basic concept of money. Spent like crazy without having a steady job and signed up for a multitude of credit cards that I couldn't possibly pay for; charging as if it were free money that didn't have to be paid back. I spent years mired in bad credit hell, not paying back student loans, credit cards, cell phone bills, you name it, I was delinquent on it!

But I turned a corner in maturity a little over two years ago, fed up with my own bs and deseparate to turn things around for myself. I've paid off three student loans and that feels good; I feel like I accomplished something major and I want to keep this feeling going. I feel like an adult now and after spending years running away from adulthood, it's a surprisingly good fit on me.