stop spending money

I have fallen off of this wagon and gotten back on so many times it feels like….sigh. However, things have been rocky lately with a trip to France (I received a grant but still had to come up with a lot of the money), a wedding I was in, and things are just out of whack. So I get paid this week and things should get much better—when they do I’m going back to CASH ONLY for purchases and banning myself from my credit cards and the stores where I am tempted to use them.

I signed up for a free account on mint.com…you link all your accounts (which for me was checking, savings, and my credit cards) and it monitors for you all in one place what your money is doing.

Now that I can look and see my negative net worth (yes, negative net worth, gosh that sounds icky), it’s easier to talk myself out of spending money that, in actuality I DON’T have because I have debt.

It just feels good to be facing my finances, good or bad, instead of pretending there isn’t a problem. So I already feel better even though I have a ways to go!

the only thing I’ve spent money on in the past two days is dog food (necessity) and paying bills (necessity)

last night we stayed in and had home cooked dinner! it was good and cheap cheap cheap!

I’ve just overdrawn my checking account because I didn’t want to check the balance because I didn’t want to see how low it was. Now it’s lower than low. If that’s not a lesson in the crippling capabilities of denial, I don’t know what is.

I’ve been terrible with money in the past and in the last couple of years have started to get my act together. I recently finished school and started new jobs, moved to a new apartment, and got a dog. I went from my low-paying, but still reliable reception job I had while in school to juggling three different new jobs with different salaries at each one (I work for non-profits…). I failed to set a budget from the get go and now I’m in a big big mess.

BUT I VOW today to straighten this out and not be back in this place again.