pinch, punch, first of the month

This is my planned budget for March. I meant to post it at the bottom of the blog, but this is as good as I got it. I can't wait until April to see how I did! Also, I figured that other PF bloggers help themselves and others by setting monthly goals. Here are mine!:

March Goals:

1. No coffee that is not homemade. For health reasons, I'll eventually wean myself back off caffeine, but for now not buying it from any coffee shop will help my finances.

2. Track spending, every receipt, every time.

3. Work at least 10 hours per week for Professor. I mean -- what am I really whining about when I have a job?

4. Keep dishes out of my kitchen sink. Once and for all, dammit.

Can't wait 'til April!

my money...in love

Last night I watched Suze Orman present "Women & Money" on PBS. I've know about Suze Orman for ages, but I never picked up a book or watched an interview (although I did watch a snippet of "Can I Afford This?" and thought it was pretty funny). I didn't bother to engage with her work, since I figured she talks about what to do with your income -- RothIRAs, trust funds, stocks or whatever, and I don't know what those things are. Plus, I don't have an income.

Well, last night she lectured about the relationship between women and their money, and how it's usually dysfunctional. I tried to be cynical -- I don't usually like pop psychology reasons for why I do the things that I do. But Suze gave example after example....of me.

She said women can be bad with money because we think we're bad at math and don't understand the numbers or jargon. I'm so there. My seventh grade math teacher (who was female) told me once not to worry about flunking her class -- "Math is hard for girls," she said. (I'm only 25!! That was in the '90s!!) I can balance my checkbook (in Excel), but calculating in my head just doesn't happen. It's true -- I'm afraid of my shortcomings here and so avoid confronting my money here.

Suze Orman also said women are bad with money because we don't really think we deserve it. While I'll be the first to describe me as self-centered, when it comes to money...I truly suffer from generosity. Does a friend need something? BAM! Here comes my credit card. "Oh, you can pay me back whenever...." turns into never, because I won't ask. What really struck me here is my money (money!!) is the only area where I will not be pushy and demanding.

Suze talked about how being pushy and demanding and even a little selfish with your money for a while will put you in a much better place. If you take care of it, save for yourself, own your own things, etc., then when you give something to someone, you won't suffer from worry about bouncing your account or secretly begin to resent that they haven't paid you back. You can truly gift people just for the joy of gifting. Until then...well, I'll just need to give people home-made cookies when they need help.

One last thing she said that really hit home for me was that once you take care of yourself financially, you'll be clean. At first I was like, "What is this snake potion? Buy her book and you'll be rich, thin, and clutter-free?" But she had an excellent point -- when you don't care about things, and don't take care of them, what does it say about your attitude towards the money (and the time you spent earning it) that bought them? That really, really applies to me. Since I've started this blog, I've reflected that my life is not only out of control on the books. I think: "If my house is clean, then I can sit down and understand finances," or "If only I had more money, then I wouldn't worry and could clean this place up." It's true, the two are interconnected, but one doesn't follow the other -- they go together. I need to look at where my money has gone -- furniture that's covered in dust, clothes I can't find, books stacked up to my butt that I haven't read. I'm disrespecting my money and my (feeble) earning power when I let stuff go to hell like this. WOW.

Sorry if that seems elementary to some of you. I'm still a little gobsmacked...but I did my dishes last night after dinner. And I'll be doing them again before I leave my house. AND...I'm going to place a library hold on Suze Orman's Women and Money right this instant.

reprogramming my mind

I finally got paid today! It's not terribly much -- less than $100, thanks to my lackadaisical attitude. But what I did that is new and different is that I did not spend it, and have no plan to spend it until my car payment is due. So far, all I've spent today is $19.50 from my cc for a badly-need tire rotation on my car.

Not too shabby!

now look here, missy

OK, there are nine weeks of class left. I have a pretty nice schedule that only requires me to come on campus 2 days a week. I occassionally come on at other times during the week or on weekends. So far this week, I have succumbed twice to my dark desire for coffee and stale sugar cookies from Overprice Coffee Shop.

I hate math, but it's time to start crunching number on here, to shove them in my face and hopefully get them to settle into my brain. If I rationalize, "Oh, it's just 3.05" to myself eighteen more times this semester (which is how many more times I must be on campus), I will spend $54.90 by the second week of May. OMG. Let's round it up -- $55. It's been a long time since I even dropped that much on one grocery run.

Beyond that, I'm dangerously close to gaining back the weight I happily lost in the last semester. At this rate, I will be far, far away from my goal of wearing a bathing suit (geez, even a onesie) this summer for the first time since my early college years.

So my lesson: my craven cravings are not good for my wallet or my wasitline. I know that -- I knew it before I bought the damn cookie, but now the numbers are enshrined here to be seared back onto my eyeballs next time I think I need a sugar / caffeine hit to get through class. $55 bitch! If I make it, I'll spend half of it at a thrift store!

And seriously? The cookies are never as good as I hope they'll be.

oops

OK, I went out to eat with a friend last night and picked up the tab. On my credit card. Granted, I should have picked up the tab since it was my idea to go out. I guess the real problem was that I had the idea in the first place!!

I feel pretty bad about it -- $30 is a lot. A LOT of money, from my new perspective. I'm going to try not to beat myself up about this. I do get paid a little bit from Professor on Friday. And more importantly, perhaps this is like any other successful change in lifestyle -- if you try to go cold turkey, you'll only give up after one little set back, but if it is a gradual change....

Well, that's what I tell myself anyway.

w00t

Back in the day, Grandma always saved my ass. I went to a live-on-campus high school* where there were penalties charged for, among many other things, being late to class. Unfortunately, I was not (and frequently am not) a punctual person. About once a month I'd have racked up about $25 in fines for all those two, five, ten minute lapses between the beginning of class and me walking through the door. Although I never told Grandma this, and never asked her for money, about once a month she'd send a $25 check which I would promptly sign over to the vice-principle or whoever. Now, I could calculate how much it would be if I'd have gotten my shit together ten years ago and saved all that money and put it in a kick-ass interest account. But I won't, because I don't want to know, and I want to continue with my story.

Darling Grandmother sent me a check earlier this month which I just rediscovered under a pile of crap on my desk. $100 is a lot of money! To be honest, two days ago, before I started this blog, I would have though….wohoo!! Drinks on me! New shoes! But now…that's my emergency fund! Kabam! I put it in the bank (less $10 for laundry), and mentally drew a line at $105. That's for the $5 my bank requires to keep the account open, and $100 for an emergency fund. Do you think that's safe enough, or should I open a new account? At a new bank even?

And what did I do with the $10? I drove directly to the laundry mat and put it all on my little laundry debit key. I like this laundry place because they use keys that you charge, not quarters. That way, quarters don't disappear into soda and candy machines.

As I learned from my recent-ish fairly successful weight loss, it's frequently as important what you are not doing to reach a goal as what you are. Maybe I'm just negative. For example, when I was trying to lose weight, I could think, "Oh my god, I just at a salad for lunch. I'm still hungry!" But then I would think, "What I did not do was have a gigantic bowl o'crap full of empty carbs and sugar. Yay!" With my financial budget, when I think, "Oh, boo I'm so broke and I want a pony," I will try to think instead, "I did my laundry for $6…and what I did NOT do was eat at the Mexican place next door while I waited, or shop at either of the TWO international food stores in the SAME plaza, or buy a cup of coffee across the street. Yay!"

*To call it a "boarding school" would make it sound more sophisticated than it was. It was a self-sufficient religious institution for the manic and repressed. Did not like.

here i come

Well, here I am, ready to blog my way towards better personal finance. Let me establish the basics.

I'm a law student at Law School in College Town, USA. I am in the midst of a personal crisis that has instigated a disastrous financial situation. Avoiding details here -- both for the benefits of anonymity and to avoid burdening others with navel-gazing about personal problems that are mostly all my fault.

Here's a rundown of my finances:

• Savings -- $203.58
  
• Checking -- $19.38 (I know!)
  
• Credit Card 1 – ($2,315.23), which equals $184.77 left
  
• Credit Card 2 – roughly ($2,500)
  

How did I get here? I'm ashamed to say…that I can't say. I have no idea. I'm educated, and got that way debt-free thanks to my parents. I've worked, I understand the value of things, and I used to think I was pretty good with money. No, wait – I was pretty good with money, back when I had it. I've recently broken my habit of eating my way out of personal discomfort or painful situations – only to find out that I spend. It's kind of like kicking the alcohol habit by sniffing glue.

I live on debt – not listed above is the $49,000 in Stafford loans I've taken (and apparently squandered) since August 2007. I'm trying to get past the panic of feeling like I need to pay off my debt now – that is just not going to happen. In fact, when I called Bank in a frenzy on Friday, the banker suggested that I apply for an expanded credit limit and continue to live off my cards until I graduate. That's not something I really want to do. On the other hand, I am limited in how I can make income. The ABA limits law students to a 20-hour work week – and it's ridiculous to think I have an extra 20 hours to work. Nevertheless, I have a job researching for Professor, and I'm trying to find ways to increase the hours I log. On average, it's been 4 a week or less, and at only $8 / hour.

Here's what I do have going for me. I have a scholarship that covers most of my tuition (please don't ask how I could have a scholarship yet be so dumb as to have less than twenty bucks in my checking account). With the loans disbursed at the beginning of January, I paid my rent through May, my car insurance through July, and a health insurance policy through the semester. I have the gift of a (mostly) reliable laptop that should get me through the rest of my degree. I have the grades to get a job that pays at least a pittance for the summer, or at the very least a relative-lawyer to beg for some paid drafting or something.

Here's what I have against me, per month:

• Car payment, $251.46
  
• Cell phone, $40
  
• Internet, $30
  
• Groceries, whatever I spend since I don't have a budget (I know!)
  

The car payment makes me most panicky. I bought a new car in spring 2007, when I was in a much, much different situation. At the time, I was reluctant to buy a new car…but like I said, my situation was different then. I thought about trading it in for a cheaper used one. However, I only have about $3800 of it paid off, and a car I could find for around that price would probably not be reliable or last for as long as my current vehicle will. Are those even valid considerations?

So that's where it is. I hope to get some snazzy tracking widgets up if I can figure out how. Maybe I'll even take a picture of my boots or something to post.