The Day Before the Rest of My Life

Wow - I had such good intentions the first day of 2010. I refuse to lie to myself - I have no excuse for not posting. Fear of putting myself out there, being seen in a less than favorable light because of my personal money mismanagement??? Nope, while the statements are true, they are not a valid excuse for not following through on a promise to myself.

This has been one long year of reflection and life changes: identifying my strengths and weaknesses, gaining new and losing old friendships, finding myself again as a woman of substance, learning how to honestly laugh again. I'm no longer a pushover for anyone, my self included. I don't delude myself as to my emotional and/or financial situation ~ the former is fantastic while the latter limps along.

I have met some of my financial goals but not all of them. For example, my bankruptcy is in the final stages - only one piece of paper left to file with the court and I'm done with that. I now have a credit card (not a secured card but a real one!). I'm already budgeting for next year's vacation.

The Day Before the Rest of My Life - what does that mean?  Tomorrow, I begin Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University.  I've been afforded a wonderful opportunity to learn more about money: how it works, how to manage mine so I can be totally debt free (pay off the huge parent loan I took out for my daughter's college education), and how I can use it to work for ME instead of vice versa.  This is NOT a get rich quick thing but a life style change that I begin tomorrow. I’m excited about learning new things to enhance my financial future.  This is the day before the rest of my (improved finanical) life and I’m very excited to start on this journey to a financially free me.

I’m sure I’ll be revising my financial goals, and how I will reach them, in these next 12 weeks.  I will document them here as a reminder of how I’m progressing and what I'm doing to get where I want to go.

Right now, I'm focusing on these two items for my near economic future (within the next two years):

• Buy a house by my birthday next year. I jumped the gun by looking this year before I was 100% financially and emotionally prepared. I've winnowed out all the "oooh, this would be cool" stuff and identified my basic must-haves. Once I find a home that exactly meets all my requirements, THEN I'll consider some of the nice-to-have things.

• As if ordering my financial universe isn’t enough of a (temporary) emotional and psychological strain, I have been thinking about a career change once my finances are stabilized.  I'm really burned out on what I'm doing. I happened to stumble upon this quote by Joseph Campbell - the writer who coined the term 'Follow Your Bliss" – which reinforced my desire to {do that thing I'm not going to mention here}. "I think the person who takes a job in order to live - that is to say, for the money - has turned himself into a slave." I refuse to remain a slave one dollar longer than I have to.

Long term, I’m concentrating on obtaining a quality of life retirement.

So….there it is.  My financial goals and ideas as they stand today.  


Until next time....


Money is neither my god nor my devil. It is a form of energy that tends to make us more of who we already are, whether it's greedy or loving. ~ Dan Millman