For those just joining us, I might as well tell you a few things about myself. So, randomly...
I'm a thirty-something newlywed. My husband and I just got married last September after dating for just under two years.
We had a small, cost-conscious but still lovely wedding in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.
We went on a Caribbean cruise for our honeymoon, which would have fit into the overall wedding budget, except that we got carried away with the shore excursions and ended up running up a grand in credit card debt to pay for them. At the time it seemed like the chance of a lifetime and well worth the debt. Looking back... swimming with dolphins and stingrays is fun and all, but the next cruise we take, we're just going to save our money and relax on the beach all day.
We have no children, and no immediate plans to have any. We have pets. Two cats and an aging toy poodle. They're enough of a handful right now.
In my late twenties I was so bad at tracking my spending, budgeting, paying my bills on time, etc. that I ended up digging such a deep hole for myself that I couldn't even pay my rent and had to move back home with my mom.
A few months after that, the company I worked for downsized my entire department, and I went back to school to earn a B.S. in social science. My mom let me live at home rent-free while I went to school, bless her. I didn't work while I went to school, and lived off of what was left of my student loans after tuition and books. During this period I learned a lot about frugal living and how to make my money stretch.
I have altogether about $17,000 in debt, including my student loans. Less than half of that is credit card debt.
I'm only a few payments away from paying off my highest interest credit card. Woo!
Since screwing up so badly I lost my apartment, I've gotten a lot better at managing my finances. Getting engaged and then married made me even more responsible and diligent, too scared of the knowledge that my screw-ups affect another person's financial well-being to take any chances.
Despite the added honeymoon debt, I'm already better off financially this year than I was last year; it's been a pretty steady improvement for the last five or six years. That's pretty exciting.
I'm an aspiring novelist. I used to dream of writing a best-seller and getting rich beyond belief. Now I just dream of selling a manuscript for an advance large enough to knock out my student loans in one fell swoop.
Our short-term goals: pay off our credit cards, build up a savings account, and then tackle our student loans. Long-term goals: buy a house, eventually; build my small businesses so that I can work from home when we're ready to start having kids.
Said small businesses include blogging for money, writing for money, and knitting for money. Right now they don't bring in a lot, but they bring in enough to help.
I work full time as an administrative assistant. It pays better than you think, and brings in enough to cover the bills and necessities. Everything I bring in on top of that goes toward debts, savings and small luxuries.
I don't have a functioning home computer, so I blog from my job during breaks and slow periods. I don't update on the weekends.
I'm putting my husband through school right now, so that when he graduates and gets a good job I can stay home to write full time and raise babies. He's getting straight A's. He's a smarty-pants.
We're currently renting an efficiency apartment from my mother. Rent's cheap, utilities and satellite are included, but there's no kitchen to speak of, not nearly enough closet space, we live way out in BFE, and we're miserable. We're hoping to move to something bigger and closer to my job, just as soon as we can find something that will fit inside our budget. We're hoping that we can find a two bedroom house or duplex and praying that we won't have to settle for an apartment.
I think that's everything relevant, and probably more than you really need to know. But now you know where I'm coming from, as well as where I'm (hopefully) headed.Labels: goals, personal, random |
