The Trainwreck Also Called My Financial Status

The New Year is upon us, and I am reassessing areas of my life. Just like everybody esle.

My money's a mess. There is no way around this.

I have to get help with it. I have a group I plan to start doing with with after the new year.

I have small side business ventures to work on. I also have things aroudn the house I want done as well. I don't know how to manage all of these items, and yet I feel like learning to get to all of them is critical for my success and for the next stage of my life, which starts with the toll of the midnight bells on New Years.

Here's a win: I was in Northern Wisconsin with my family the last couple days. My Dad had invited me, and even though I am in my 30s, whenever we do anything as a family, I have always felt, "Let Dad pay for me. That bastard owes me." For what, I don't know. General parental pain and suffering, I suppose.

This time, however, I had my own cash. I did not borrow any from my friend Mike. I used my own money; and it was exhilerating.

Money relates to my relationships, because you see, as long as my friend Mike helps me out financially, even though we are friends and not in a physical relationship, I feel obligated to him. Read: no dating anyone.

Which does make sense, right? I'd sound even shittier and more of a POS if I were dating other guys and receiving financial benefits from this guy.

So you see, the sooner I get financially on my feet, the sooner I can move on with my life. As I've mentioned before, and will mention again if for no other reason that to remind myself, I have been financially indpendent. I just got lucky, if you will, had someone who was willing to help, and have never let go. 2010 is the year I need to let go. I just want to let go slowly, instead of all at once.

Thanks for listening. Until next time.

I'm Afraid To Do This, But Here Goes...

I'm going to start document my spending habits here too. The fact is, I have two major - actually, three areas of my life that I feel need the most work; my physical fitness, my financial fitness, and my psychological fitness. The psychological to me includes healing past hurts and wounds, moving forward into a more spiritually awake existence, and good old psychology. But NOT psychology that jsut spins and spins into blaming my family and upbringing for my current problems. That's not useful - believe me, I've been doing it for years. I'm talking positive psychology, which moves the person out of their anger and ruts and into their best self.

While we'll be covering all three, this one is primarily money focused. How can I focus one on money, when I'm also doing another one on spirituality? Well, I think that learning to manage my money is part of my spiritual growth.

Hold on there, pardner - don't go running away quite yet. The more I read about living the life you want, becoming your best self, they all seem to say that money is not the evil - the hurtfuls acts committed in an effort to obtain the most money possible are what hurts our own selves and society as a whole.

But when money is looked at as a possible platform for growth, to learn how to be disciplined and flowing - that to me is a great lesson to learn.

Here's a quick sum up: My money is a mess. I have gone to my family to help me out on occassion, but I can tell they (rightfully so) resented it. So I have a friend - my friend Mick - who "helps me out" sometimes. Some would call this a great friend. Others would call it an enabler. The truth is, if Mick didn't give me money, I do wonder if we would be friends or not.

My goal for 2010 is to simply learn to live within my income. That's it. I need to go back to crawling, and then start walking and then running, hopefully. Because right now, I can't even make it through one pay period without asking Mick for something. It could just be him paying for us to go to Chipotle, it could be as much as me saying, wow, I really fucked up ... could you spare a few hundred dollars? Yeah. It's tragic and awful and pathetic and true - I go through my money like an alcoholic goes through bottles of whiskey. I feel no control over my money. I plan to change that this year.

So, that's where we are starting, with next year's goal. Then we can look at credit card debt paydown and so on, but my baseline is to live within my paycheck every week. We'll grow from there.

Today's Painful Realization: I went Christmas shopping. Mick spotted me the money, as he determined that I should get my family gifts. I hated that I am that little girlish that I couldn't budget for that on my own. Next year, I will have planned it in. A lot of things are going to change this year. I plan to join Debtor's Anonymous next year. It's going to be a rocky road. I hope you join me on my ride

I'm

My Paycheck is the Wood...

And my bank account is the wood chipper. This is the best way I can sum up my current spending habits, and my current ability with shaping my life with my money.

Could I take that wood and shape into into a work of art? Intentionally cut into into useful pieces and make some comfortable furniture on which to sit? Save up a bunch of the wood and make something larger, like a house?

Sure.

But currently, I don't.

I am 37 years old, and have about $21,000 in unsecured debt. This is not including my car payment or student loans. these add another $15,000 to the mix.

This has got to change.

I have not known how. Then, a few weeks ago, I heard about debtors anonymous for the first time in my life.

I attended my first meeting. Then went to my second. They recommend going to six meetings before committing involvement, just to make sure the program is right for you.

I know program is right for me. If it's not, I don't know what I am going to do.

But here's what i did, and I wonder if alcoholics do this before they finally decide they need to enter AA - I have been on a spending bender the last few weeks. I am getting all the last minute things I think I need, so that when they tell me I have to curb my spending, I can say, "Ok," without saying, "Well, yeah, but you try living without buying new organization pieces for my underwear drawer. You might be able to, but I can't!"

I literally just realized yesterday how much of a frenzy I had been in. I have not looked at my bank balance once in a week.

I need help. I know I do.

But it just doen't sound fun. Fiscal responsibility sounds like geeky territory, and i'll be out with my manager friends, who all get aroused at the shight of an excel spreadsheet. I don't want to be that person.

Or do I know?

This is what i do know: I have had experiences over the last few years where I learned a new skill, and when I learned it I practiced it and worked on it until it became easy to me. Will I be able to do that with my money. The bigger question is this: do I WANT to do that with my money?

thanks for listening. Another day