Thursday, January 10, 2008

Score

This is the day that makes the battle to spend ever fewer pennies worth it. 

My pay check hit my account at the stroke of midnight. As soon as I woke up, I lobbed another sack of change at my credit card. It was particularly sweet today, because the sum was $1000.

If friends had told me a year ago I could pay that amount -- from one pay check -- towards my debt, I would have looked at them as if they were cross-eyed. 

It helps that I have no insurance payments for my car and motorcycle this month. Still, I haven't lived this frugal since college. I realize that my budget has room for a little more expense paring, but I feel it is an accomplishment nonetheless.

Nevertheless, the excitement is tinged with a bit of regret. While I have reduced paid nearly $10,000 towards principal and interest in 6 months, I can't help but think of my misspent years. 

I take solace in having saved at least saving some money towards retirement. I am staring down 40, though, and wish I had wised up a little sooner.




2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Woooo!

You rock, girl.

Unknown said...

if it makes you feel any better, I'm 33 and your effort has helped me pay better attention to my own finances.

soon after you started this blog, Marina and I decided to get wise to our money matters...at least to the point of knowing where it all goes

we are into our third month of recording everything we spend so we can get a baseline from which to work a proper budget, with goals and rewards and all that good stuff

we've been paying as much as possible to debt, but only in a vague, undisciplined manner

surely it's been working as we have been steadily climbing out of debt over the years, but your comments here help to illustrate the idea that we could be climbing out a lot faster if we want to.

first step we figure is to know how much we spend...before this year, i honestly couldn't tell you how much money we spend per month on groceries, for example...