Like Whoa, Twenty Twelve...

Holy. Schmoly.

July?...

Really?...

Dang. That Sucks.

What can I say but that I've been a busy lady.  Quick and dirty update...ready...GO!

• Became a Girl Scout Troop Leader to 9 amazing Fourth Graders in August
• Had an Immigration Interview for The Husband in Montreal in October - He passed!
• Picked up The Husband from Canada in November
• Nursed The Husband through, then caught Bronchitis around Thanksgiving
• Helped Find Homes for the 4 kittens of Creeper the 'Ho
• Holidaze (ha!) Haziness...

And now we're all caught up til now! Wow, really, not much to talk about, eh? ;)

Actually, I could probably fill seventy blogs with what I have done and dealt with in the past several months, but I would have trouble trying to remember everything that occurred and in the proper order, so I had best just focus on the present and do what needs doing.

Doing what needs doing has been what I have come to realize needs to be priority number one for me.  Lord knows I have always been the biggest procrastinator...pretty much ever. This is not much of a surprise for those that know me well. But, with my recent bad habit of scheduling myself full to capacity, things started to fall. Fall far and land hard through the tiny cracks of time in my schedule.  This blog was the first to go. (Obviously.)

Blogging was not the only thing to disappear when my time became crunched. I can't even tell you how large the stack of journals has become.  Prayer journals, food journals, dream and goal journals... yeah, The Husband has no idea what they are all for. And I am sure he wants the pile to shrink.

I also feel like I haven't been able to keep in contact with some of my closest and best friends. Especially the ones that live nearby.  Ladies, for the record, I think about you ALL THE TIME. The time just disappears on me... whooooo there it goes! Please do not take my silence as disinterest. Please, hit me up with an email or text at any time. (God Bless Android Smartphones.)

Then, with The Husband finally coming home, I feel like I haven't spent even enough time with him because I have something planned 5 out of the 7 days in a week. And I am not talking about work! I mean after work (Bible Study Mondays, Glee Tuesdays, Girl Scout Meeting Planning Wednesday, Girl Scout Meeting Thursday, Laundry on Sunday). It is like a never-ending list of commitments that I find difficult to manage and organize.

Perhaps the difficulty stems from not maintaining control over my living space. My bedroom, Our bedroom, is a disaster. Piles of things I wanted to organize before he got home are still sitting...piled on his desk.  It is ridiculous. I feel like a hoarder. Seriously. I think it stems from not having an actual 'place' to put things.  I have so much stuff in one tiny bedroom it is just too much. It has to be my storage for things I don't use everyday, my place to get ready in the morning, my desk, my book storage, place for all my clothes, place for Medusa's box, and house a queen-sized bed. Really, I don't know how this poor room can take it anymore. When things don't have an actual 'home' to be placed in... they just pile. Ugh. I can't even describe how much it totally grosses me out. Some of it is laziness, I will admit, but most of it is lack of usable space.  My goals get lost in the piles.  Not even kidding, found a list last night of 'dreams to accomplish' that was in with my income financials. Yeah. You tell me, friends. You tell ME what is going on in this messed up crazy brain. I sure in the heck don't know.

In order to end on a high note, I would like to say that my budgeting skillz are going to be put the test now that The Husband is home and on the job hunt.  My income is going to have to float two.  And I have figured out a way to do it, but there is not going to be any debt reduction besides my minimum payments for a while. Cash is not really flowing here, it's kinda trickling (like the water pressure here at the house for a while), and we're going to make due until my Partner-in-Crime joins me on the income side of the budget sheet.  We are, together, GOING to make it Closer to Fine.

So Excited! I had to share...

It's been one year since my first debt snowball budget. The First of August 2010 was a rough day. I finally had to come to grips with the fact that I could no longer spend money that I did not have coming in.  I had recently purchased a lovely (amazing, totally worth every penny) Dyson vacuum cleaner on a Best Buy credit card for zero percent interest for 18 months. Not the best thing I ever did, blame the heat of July and Medusa's propensity to shed, but really, it was because the other vacuum sucked and I wanted this one baaaad.  So I did it. ugh.  Now it's sitting in the storage unit because I'm living at home and we have enough vacuum cleaners for three houses rather than just one. No need to add another one, even though the Dyson > all the others combined.

That fateful August saw me starting my total debt balance at $12,288.42. It might not seem like a lot of money, but for me, that is a whole lot of money. Mostly, it is student loans, yay fifth year.  Otherwise, it was credit card debt. I don't have a car payment, thank the sweet baby Jesus, or any outstanding medical debt.  I like things. I love going out to eat, and I enjoy the convenience of plastic. Counting bills is a pain in the butt, and even though I use the envelope system for the majority of my purchases, I. Hate. It. It is, however, the best way for me to know where my money is going and how much I have left to spend. I just wish it could all have a separate plastic card. Like my separate checking account for my car expenses. When you start driving over 100 miles a day for your job, then you can just begin to understand the necessity it is to have several hundred dollars in an account solely for your car. Poor little Civic. (148,800 miles, now. I'm hoping we make it to 200k.)

I have acquired the habit of writing out a budget every week, mostly on Thursday nights, to tell my Friday paycheck where it is going. It fights a little, don't get me wrong. It hates that so much goes towards debt and other necessary living expenses, and that there's never enough left to beat the debt into submission. It's a very aggressive paycheck. It's small but feisty, kinda like me.  It usually totals around $450 a week. (Disclaimer: This is the god-honest truth. I am not ashamed of what I earn, because I know I earn it. I'm going to leave it up to you to do the math, however.) 

Every week that paycheck goes out like so: 

$30 in personal spending money. If I want to go to a movie, there goes $15. I'm down by half.

$30 in food money. If I want lunch or a latte. I like lattes.

$10 for the kitty. We're trying to save for a de-clawing, but litter and food is expensive, too.

$15 for clothing. You don't want to see me naked.

$50 (at least - sometimes I sneak some extra...) for a Canada Fund. You best realize I want to see my husband mighty fierce.

$65 for my Car. I'll do this math for you. That's almost 15% of my paycheck going into my car,  for insurance, gas, maintenance, and I don't even have a payment on it.

Then, every month are other expenses like rent, health insurance, cell phone, a little savings, and debt payments. From the approximately $1800 I take home, $1743 goes towards expenses. Yup. That leaves me $57 to pick up any slack in a month. If you are a single person, please think of the last time you went to the grocery store for more than 10 items. I bet that total was more than $60.

Now that you have the perfect understanding of my finances, you can be excited for me, too!  In the past year  my debt has gone from $12,288.42 to $10,482.18!  I paid off:

$1,806.24

That is the equivalent of ONE MONTH'S TAKE  HOME PAY! 

I'm sure you probably think that's a kind of whatever. That I didn't do much, really. That I didn't really sacrifice or pay down anything extra on my debt. And I didn't do the latter, but I am working so hard and am so excited at this one thing I could cry in joy.  I don't do a lot of things that I want to do, or that my friends do because I can't afford it. When the envelope's empty, it's empty, and I have to wait for the next Friday's feisty paycheck. And so, here I am, doing what I can, even though it might not be much, getting Closer to Fine.

Random Update and a Day Trip to Franklin

It's been a couple of weeks, and last time I had two posts in two days so I had best be forgiven my current lapse. It is also the beginning of a new month and I want to say that June is looking to be a good one.  If today is typical of the rest of the month, it's going to be pretty fantastic. Here's the rundown:

My alarm went off at 8:30 and I stumbled out of bed this morning at 9. I then trekked my booty down to the Y and attended, and mostly participated, in a Dance it Out class. It was pretty hardcore and unfortunately I was not physically able to do all the moves, but I modified it for my not-so-much ability level and stuck it out through the whole class. After even the warm-up song I started feeling asthmatic, and then there was a little heart burn to go along with that which was difficult to handle while jumping up and down and shaking my booty.  However, I was really proud I stuck it out,  introduced myself to the instructor, and thanked her afterwards.

In the early afternoon I left my parents house and headed to Starbucks at Glenbrook, where all my friends are :D , and Danny made me a fabulous Tall Mocha Frappuccino Light with Extra Whipped Cream. That means it was in a Grande Cup with lots of fluffy white stuff on top. Talked to Troy and B-randon for a little while, then headed down south of Nashville.

I walked out of the house with Monster in tow, intending to maybe go park it in a Barnes and Noble or somewhere else with free Wi-Fi to chill and do some internet research (also known as trolling Facebook and playing online games). Then I got a wild hair and decided I was going to go walk Historic Franklin, see all the shops and generally waste my Saturday afternoon.  Lo and behold it was the weekend of the 36th Annual Town & Country Tour of Homes and Historic Places. I saw a sign, purchased a ticket at Landmark Booksellers where the proprietress was super-helpful, and started my little walking tour. (Digression: I parked at the store and when I returned from my tour decided I was going to thank the proprietress for her help. Unfortunately, she was not there, but her husband the proprietor was, and he said he was going to pass along the message. I hope he did.)

My first stop was the newly refurbished and updated Historic Franklin Theatre. It was awesome to go on a tour of the state-of-the-art projection and live-even theatre.  One of the neatest things was that there is cafe seating at tables closest to the stage, a stage that contains drawers at the front for the storage of said tables and chairs so that it can become a dance-floor. How super-awesome-fantastic is that?! I know, it's the little things. Then I walked several blocks to the "Ewing-Green House" that was built in 1911. The renovation was done by the previous homeowners, but the current lady of the house was fantastic to talk to for a little while. She answered a couple of questions I had about the 3-car detached garage (like that it has small apartment above with a full bathroom), and talked to me about the fantastic renovation of a galley kitchen and two bedrooms into a fabulous chef's kitchen, breakfast area, living room, half bath, and living room. During the renovation was the addition of a rear sun room/office space that is accessed from the living room and can be viewed through an original window over the sink which is the former rear wall of the home.  My next stop was the Brownstones at First Ave. & Church Street. All I am going to say is that it was a fabulous example of modern convenience and living with the perfect touches of historic style and elegance. All the brownstones have four levels, three stories plus a basement, an elevator and garages. According to one homeowner, a neighbor and volunteer on the tour, most homes have two utility rooms. My last stop was the Franklin Masonic Temple. Firstly, how many non-masons get to tour the lodge meeting room? Pretty much never, and I learned all kinds of things I didn't know about masonry. (Not that I knew much to begin with so, there you go.) The building is of historical significance for several reasons: Andrew Jackson signed a treaty with the Chickasaw indians to send them to reservations, it was both a barrack and a hospital during the Civil War, was the beneficiary of the State of Tennessee's first official lottery, (Take that Hope Scholars!), and is the oldest standing Gothic Revival building in the state.

So, I was geeking out all afternoon, and only had time to go to four places because it stopped at 5pm and I only started at about 2:45. I think I did pretty well. During the whole tour I tried to speak with and thank everyone who was helping host such an interesting and entertaining afternoon for me. I met nice people, though we usually didn't exchange names, and I thanked all the homeowners for being gracious enough to open their homes. It was quite an enjoyable afternoon. The only thing that was missing, besides a bottle of water in the 90 degree heat, was The Husband.  I thought about him the whole time and wished he could have geeked out with me and protected me from the swarms of inappropriate cicadas.  

Now I am probably going to be kicked out of Panera since I have yoinked the interwebs for close to an hour now. But, I wanted to share my day and let you know that I am still working at being Closer to Fine.