First Things First

I must begin by making a few confessions…
First, I am relatively new to blogging and have only been reading for a few weeks. My financial research however goes back through Internet sites, books from the library and magazine & newspaper articles.

My second confession is difficult to admit to but I have an existing debt of 10,000 in School Loans and 15,000 in credit card debt. How you may ask can anyone who has taken the initiative to read about debt reduction, personal finance, budgeting, and investing been crazy enough to take on this kind of debt? Not a day goes by that I don’t ask myself that same question.

I have put together a fairly comprehensive budget on an excel spreadsheet. I have addressed some of my weaknesses. I quit smoking 4 ½ months ago. That’s a savings of $5/day and $1825 per year. Ouch! I have stopped eating out everyday, but I could still use some improvement in that area.

Goals for September:
- Pay back my stepfather for that emergency loan in June. ($600) He’s allowing me to paint a portion of his house to help pay it off. They may not be charging me interest, but I’m going to feel a lot better nixing that debt quickly. So far I have repaid $180.
- Put $100 into my emergency fund and get that puppy started. (Okay, I confess that my plan is to pay off my Line of Credit that is attached to my checking account as part of my emergency fund. I’ll kill two birds with one stone.)
- Cut my meals out to twice a week and no more than $25 per week.