Budgeting to Maintain my Sanity

I have a huge confession to make. Once upon a time I had one too many credit cards. Yes, I was that irresponsible college student who refused to let her parents help her out. Sigh. BIG MISTAKE! Now I'm on the path, er road, to recovery and to set my credit score on track. I know only have one credit card, and two store credit cards. Even though I only use one store credit card on a monthly basis. I have been diligent about using it to purchase an item and paying it off in full. So now here's my monthly budget breakdown:

• Car - 500
• J. Crew - 50
• Gas - 200
• Savings - 450
• Schools loans - 370
• Internet - 20
• Spending cash - 250
• Misc (Gifts, etc) - 50
• Capital One - 75

 My bills are relatively few, but I am trying to dig myself out of the whole of debt. I'm actually paying an extra $100 on my car payment. The monthly car payment due is $395 and change, so I'm set on track to pay off the car in about 8 months!

I came across this neat spreadsheet over at Gather Little by Little. I love that its detailed, but most of all that the spreadsheet is broken down by pay periods! Its exactly how I pay my bills.

For now I'm making progress. Baby steps for this gal, until her car and credit card are paid off, then its all my energies on paying off my school loans.

No excuses

I really have no excuses as to why I haven't been blogging like I've been telling myself. Yes, I do get busy. I am exhausted when I get home from work, but that's no real excuse to not make time to write. I told myself, as its one of my resolutions, that this year I would write more. I mean, sit down, and write! I've been struggling to write and explore for the past two years now. I used to write like crazy in middle and high school, then I stopped. I definitely know that when I stopped writing for myself in college its when I got to a dark period of my life. Now I feel like I'm finally re-emerging and becoming a bit like my old "high school me". Work is going well. Can you believe that I'm almost up for my 6 month review?! Next week! Yikes!!!! Time sure does fly by. A quick recap to how I've been progressing.

Financially
- Month by month I'm getting closer to paying off my car! If I stick to my plan I'll be done by February of next year! 4 months ahead of schedule.
- Down to my last credit card! Balance of $662! My plan of action is to have that sucker paid off by December of this year!
- I have an okay savings, not the greatest, but I've made a habit to "pay myself" first after bills, and it's sort of become addicting. More on that later.
- I finally opened a Roth IRA and started to read and learn about finance and investing. By the end of this year I'm going to be a power woman investing in the stock market!

Emotionally
- I'm definitely in a better place. No more nasty thoughts for now at least. I seem to have regained my self-confidence back.
- Anxiety is under control. Still a bit whacky every now and then. You can tell when its bad by looking at my nails. I'm a chronic nail biter. Although I've done an excellent job at not biting them in the past few months.

Physically
- I've been running for 12 weeks now. I feel incredible and great when I run! The focus has been on developing my cardio, breathing, and endurance. Not focusing on distance. I know it will come with due time. I've decided to take on the Beach Cities Challenge this year and look forward to completing those races.

I can't promise I'll blog soon or do so on a daily basis, but this is me stating that I can't be making excuses about my writing. I can't put it off. I need to set aside my anxiety of authorship and just write. I like to think that this is my first step towards writing freely without my anxiety inhibiting any of it.