Money Matters

I am fortunate enough to have a friend that is good with her money. She knows what she is doing and manages her family budget very well. Since Dave and I are having some issues right now, she was kind enough to come over this evening and share her knowledge with me. Let me just pause to thank her, again. It was awesome and I am now really excited. I am excited to have some new tools and yet another area of my life to begin to improve.

I have never been "terrible" with money. I always get the bills paid and put food in the 'fridge before doing anything else. But I wouldn't say that I have things covered. We don't have savings and we tend to be really broke, right after payday. It's something that I have recently begin feeling that I need to work on. I need to make it so that our finances are a more secure area of our lives, as opposed to just an area where we scrape by. Now that I have had some guidance and know that I have someone that I can come to with questions, I am eager to begin working on it. I already have a plan in mind to reduce our next grocery bill. Let's just all hope it works. I am also starting on the budget that was given to me tonight. I need to do some 'fill in the blank' work and start taking a deeper look at things. I hope to have some new developments in this area to write about in the coming days.

We did end up having to go to the Relief Society today. When I was faced with having Dave's next paycheck be partially gone by the time it got here, I freaked. We would just have to go in two weeks if that happened, so I figured that we had better get it over with. We are now out of overdraft, have all the bills paid, and have about $150 to get us through until the 15th. Since we only need one or two more ingredients for the recipes we have planned, I think that this is more than sufficient and doable. There will be no entertainment, but I love to read and have books piled up and we have a Blockbuster Online subscription in place. I really don't think we need much more than that.

I received another item of good news today in the mail. I got my transcript evaluation back from my school today. I am to the point where I only need 23 more credit hours to be finished with my AA degree. This translates to roughly 5 classes. However, since I need to satisfy some additional math courses it leaves me looking at about 9. This is pretty awesome news. 3 classes per quarter is full time and 3 quarters per year is typical (since I want to take a summer break). I guess I will be done with my AA in May of 2010! Which means I will be done with my BA in May of 2012! I like having a time line for school, finally. I am already 23 and I was afraid I would be into my early 40s by the time I finished my Bachelor's. Since I want to go all the way to a Ph.D. finishing my BA in my forties would really suck. I wouldn't get much enjoyment out of being Dr. B. if it took me that long. I now have the end of one of my goals in sight and that makes me feel really powerful.

I have had such an awesome week so far. I am really proud of myself. The only day this week during which I have stayed in my PJs was yesterday. Even then, I did things. I managed to have a good day, even though it was a bit more lazy and low-key than the other days have been. I have gotten the things done that I said I would and I feel like moving around and being active are really helping me to control my moods. I am starting to think that half of the battle was for me to start to push myself toward change. Once I took charge I noticed almost immediately that things started to get better. Posting here is a big help as well. It causes me to examine my days and to feel like I need to have something to post, therefore I need to do something. It's amazing to me how much the small steps have helped me out thus far.

I know that I still have a long way to go in this uphill battle. I just can't help but feeling like I am victorious every single day that I don't fall into my old patterns. Though I will admit that I have been feeling a little lonely lately. I wish that I had been more active in play dates and the like from the start, because now I feel like I need to start from scratch again. I know that a lot of people have given up on including me and making plans with me and I know that I am at fault for that. You can only have a person cancel on you so many times before you throw in the towel. The important thing is that I know in my heart that I just need to keep on trying. I need to keep asking people to hang out and showing up when I make plans and I think that eventually I won't be as lonely. At least I hope so. It could turn out that I am just socially inept and not that likable. That would suck and I really hope it's not the case, so I am going to press on.

Tomorrow is Dave's first day off for the weekend. I am really hoping for good weather so that we can go to the kiddie pool at the beach. We spent a lot of time there last year but we have yet to go this year. I think it would be a nice way to spend an afternoon. If it isn't quite sunny enough for the pool, I would at least like to go on a walk or go to a park. Some fresh air would do the B-Fam a lot of good. Tomorrow should be pretty lazy and casual but I am still going to make a small list of goals before I go:

1. Get pictures hung up (This is actually Dave's job,but he takes lots of prodding)
2. Put away laundry
3. Vacuum
4. Finish up budgeting papers
5. Get out of the house at some point
6. Work Out