January was rough, February was a major improvement, but March will rock.  I’m currently happy with my progress.  It is a struggle, because my debt makes me so anxious that I just want to pay it off right now! If only I had $16,897.75 in my banking account!  (An improvement from $20,500, for sure.)  So, as March approaches, I don’t feel the way I did at the start of February.  There’s no feeling of needing to get back on track.  I already am on track.

But, I was reading some other personal finance blogs and I started to think that maybe I should talk a little more specifically about the numbers.  It should not have taken me 3 months to spell out a budget that hasn’t changed much at all in that time.  A strictly numbers approach would probably be boring and it wouldn’t help me to address the irrational and irresponsible thinking that got me into debt in the first place.  But, I think this blog would be more useful if I made it more obvious how I’m getting out of debt.  Not that there’s any strategy beyond work too much and spend almost nothing, but many days pass between paychecks and I am working at getting out of debt every day.

Sometimes the not spending thing is easy and other times it is hard.  March is a long month and it features a vacation and a great deal of school-craziness.  Two things that things that bring out the financial apathy in me.

My challenge this month is to track and report all of my spending.  To the degree that my schedule allows, I will also be recording my daily thoughts on getting out of debt.  I plan to put all of this information into a weekly post.

I don’t have any new goals for the month, beyond tracking my spending more closely, but I want to be extra diligent about all of my regular goals: stick to the budget, do not use any credit (debt and cash only), build up as many no-spend days as possible, and limit all spending.  The March Challenge is to share the everyday-ness of getting out of debt.

Related posts:

1. No Spend Days
2. Fresh Start February

I know a lot of people do this and I think it’s a cool idea, so I’m going to do it too.  I already go at least a couple days each week without spending money.  I have very little time between Sunday and Thursday morning to buy anything.   But, I suspect this is going to be a little more difficult than I’m expecting.  No spending means not even $.80 at the vending machine!

To get into the specifics, I’m going to track the days I spend nothing, though right now I have no goal in mind except do it as many days as possible. Maybe I will make a goal at the beginning of each month, but for now I’m going to try to just get in the habit.   I won’t count paying bills like I do each pay day or paying for laundry (the last thing I need is something to deter me from doing laundry!).

Challenge on!

Related posts:

1. March Challenge
2. Fresh Start February

It seems silly to talk about sacrifice when I’m only sacrificing nice things I want now to create a better future for myself. It’s selfish. Not virtuous.

But, still, it isn’t easy and I have been thinking a lot about what I’m willing to give up in order to get myself out of debt. The first to go was buying things I don’t need, so there ended the spending on clothes and DVDs and music and make up and nail polish. I have enough of all of those things anyway, so I’m not really suffering.

Now I’m starting to think of going the extra mile. That is how badly I want to be out of debt. There isn’t a lot of fat in my budget, but one huge monthly expense that drives me nuts is groceries. Up to this point, I’ve taken the stance that, well, I need to eat. And if I’m trying to get myself not to eat out, then I should buy good groceries, so that I have an incentive to eat at home.

November was an expensive month for a number of reasons, and I think it’s brought to my mind that maybe I need to make a bigger change than I was originally thinking. Just the amount of money I’ve spent on food, eating in and out, has been so ridiculous, and now I have about $65 to last me until December 10th if I still want to make my goal of putting an extra $500 toward my credit card this month.

It would be so easy for me to give in a little and just put $400 extra toward the credit card and use the rest for groceries. But, I don’t want to! I want to keep up with the goals I’ve put in writing.

So, I started thinking about whether I could keep my grocery bill extremely low for a while. Until my next pay day for sure and then maybe up until I go home for Christmas (where I won’t have to pay for any food!!). I think I can do it, but it will certainly be sacrifice on a different level than what I have been doing.

To be honest, there’s something fun and very exciting about this kind of crazy motivation. Here goes to spending $25 on groceries this week!

Update: I wrote this at the end of last week.  I’m still going strong.  One week left and I have about $25 left to spend, including groceries.  I think I can do it.  If this sounds a little crazy, I know, but it’s just a mini challenge I have for myself.  I want that $500 to put toward paying off Credit Card #1.

No related posts.