so yea, 7 weeks of unpaid maternity leave and a few hundred dollars loaned out later, i'm pretty much up the financial creek and it's not cool. so things are evening out now and i just found out last week that i'm getting a whole 3% raise so i figured it was high time to get back on the band wagon and get my shiznit together.
for the sake of pretending like i'm having a conversation with you, whoever you happen to be, i'm going to list out my efforts:
1. made my pathetic excuse for a "gazelle budget" http://www.daveramsey.com/tools/budget-lite/ based on my monthly income of about $2000. discovered that the outflow surpasses the income by about $150.
2. called the bank with my car loan to find the payoff amount - about $17,500 in case you're curious (just keepin it real). looked up blue book value - about $28,000.
3. researched used car trade ins that might give me a snowballs chance in hell of being able to buy as much food as i think i should buy every week. called husband to consult. was advised to keep plugging away with current vehicle. requested budget pow wow asap.
4. re-worked budget to ensure that all bills were paid and made realistic goals and devised a plan to accomplish them. for some reason making a budget is actually very easy but making it REALISTIC is not. this is why i thought i could make ends meet by taking a $4 an hour paycut last september. good times. so i now have a REALISTIC budget.
5. prepare for life in realistic budget mode. i can do this! i CAN do this! i can DO this! i can do THIS!
.............
yea. should be interesting.
