Disappeared For Awhile...

I know its been forever since I've been on here, life has been crazy lately. So now I'm working on catching up on my blog reading. My financial things are going along, things are kind of in limbo, so hopefully I will have something to post soon.

Not In a Good Mood

I should have scheduled my vacation to start last Monday instead of this coming Saturday. I haven't posted anything on my numbers lately because when I look at them they depress me and stress me out at the moment. Everything is still getting paid on time, but the whole budgeting thing seemed easier when I just paid my bills and contributed to savings first, and nothing was in categories, but I knew how much I had left total for things like groceries and gas. I keep finding that I'm robbing from one category because I went over in another category, and before I didn't worry about it as long as I didn't go over the total. I don't know how it worked the old way, but it just always did and it was alot less stressful. So maybe I will go back to doing it that way, but just keep track of what I spend for a month or two, then redo my budget based on those numbers. It can't be June though, because my expenses will be less because of my vacation, so maybe July and August.

Money Mental Illness?

I think I'm bipolar about money stuff. One day, everythings going great, the future's looking bright.... and the next day I find out about an unplanned expense, and spend all day stressing about it... and the next day I figure out how to get through yesterday's unplanned expense and things are looking great again... and the next day something else happens and I stress again... It goes on and on. It's becoming quite ridiculous.

The ADHD Money Brain

I talked to my BF and he is going to talk to his friend, maybe we could all get an apartment together and then I wouldn't have to adjust what I'm paying. We'll see how that goes, I could see how it could be sort of awkward for a guy to move in with his buddy and his buddy's girlfriend. If he agrees to it, I think we should try to find an apartment that at least separates the bedrooms by a bathroom or something so he can feel like he has a little privacy, maybe.

Either way, I need to start going through my stuff, you know, tossing, selling, donating. I need to majorly downsize. During my credit card carefree spending days, I accumulated a lot of stuff that I never used or barely used, and I don't want to pack it and move it.

My Iowa trip is sneaking up on me kinda fast, a little over 2 weeks away and I still need to get 2 new tires for the car that I'm driving out there. I need to figure out gifts for 2 graduations, a wedding and a baby. I have 2 little sisters graduating high school, a friend getting married, and another little sister having a baby. I also need to talk to my friend K, she is teaching me taekwondo, but she wants to set me up to take lessons from her old instructor when I'm in Iowa so I don't get behind on the training. I need to know how much that will cost. The good news about going to Iowa for almost 3 weeks is that I already budgeted for the trip out of my tax refund, so any money I spend there will come out of that and not out of my June budget (I go May 16-June 3, but my June starts May 22). Hopefully that means that I will not spend a lot of my June budget and I'll get to put more into savings or toward credit cards. Probably toward savings though because those tires are going to pretty much deplete my entire Auto Maintenance Fund, and a large part of my credit card debt was accumulated due to unexpected auto repairs.

I just read something Suze Orman wrote about donating money when you feel poor and it makes you feel richer and actually attracts more money your way. She was much more eloquent about it, but that's the gist of it. So I was wondering where to donate some money to, and I hopped on here and the first blog http://linkbee.com/Y9R6 I saw was about a Kiva loan. I had read about these before, but for whatever reason, I couldn't think of them earlier today. So I will probably start one of those up in the next week or so.

Stressed

I need to move ASAP. I love my roommate, but I just cannot do it anymore. Basically, I need to move to save our friendship. Problem is, I'm only paying $300/month with her and I can't really afford to pay any more than that. I saw an ad for a furnished efficiency apartment utilities included for $445/month (It's probably a piece of crap with a dirt floor and an outhouse, I haven't called or looked at it yet), I worked the numbers and slashed my budget, but I can't afford to do it unless I cut what I'm paying to my credit card debt by about $40-$50/month. I really really really don't want to do that. I'm going to talk to my boyfriend on Monday to see if he wants to try to find an apartment with me and we can split the costs. There are some decent ones with utilities included for a little over $600/month. I don't know if he can do it right now though. The other problem with an apartment would be our cars. We each have 2, for a total of 4, and I don't think most apartments allow 4 vehicles for one unit. I can't drive his because they are stick shifts (I get the concept but lack the patience, and he definitely will never let me drive the turbocharged one), I need my durango for the winter, and my alero so I'm not ridiculously wasting gas in the summer. I am not upside down on either car, so if worst came to worst, I could sell them both for about $10,000, pay off my loans leaving me with a little under $4000, and find something that is 4WD or AWD and decent on gas, but then I would have to start a car payment all over again, because a reliable used 4WD sedan is more than $4000.

Changes

I changed my blog title and my display name, but I promise you, its still me. I recently saw a blog with a similar title, so I decided to change mine to something more creative... At least I think it is. And a display name of "The Money Adventure" was lame, so now it is something that rocks.

Lunch

I've been reading a lot of things lately about the pros and cons of bringing lunch vs. going out. I guess it never occurred to me much since I have always had to bring my own food to work. There are times when we have pizza parties and meetings and such, but usually I'm stuck at the console for 10hrs or more and I don't have the option of going anywhere. The patrol guys occasionally offer to get me something, but I hardly ever carry cash on me and I don't like the chances that I might have to send them on a long call while they're enroute with my food. Yuck for cold restaurant food. I bring more than just lunch, its usually 2 meals and some snacks, but I wonder how much money I have saved by not eating out much? Especially since lunch in this area is likely to be over $10. That thought on top of the fact that I didn't spend more than $3/item on my last grocery trip is enough to make me do a happy dance.