on Why I Suck

It has been about six weeks since my last post.  Would you like to hear WHY, Dear Reader?  Pretty much because I suck.  Remember that tax refund I told you about?  And about how there are wise ways to spend windfalls?  Well, hopefully I didn't talk too much about that, but I planned on it.  Because if I HAD preached about the importance of being frugal and careful with windfalls, I would be a big fat hypocrite right about now.  You see, our small windfall came in and all of the sudden we turned into nouveau riche assholes.

Pretty much, we blew it.

Mind you, we did the most important thing: we payed off that little lingering amount on the credit cards.  I also paid down a student loan, though in retrospect I probably should have used more for that.

When we bought this house I really had this grand idea that all windfalls would be put directly into either the mortgage or student loans.  We spent years living on sheer willpower, never really making enough to survive.  I took a personal finance class, read a couple of books, then started really managing our money.  We cut out ALL extra spending.  Like, we're talking, I didn't order a pizza for like a year.  We paid cash for everything, so there were never any extra surprises coming out of the bank account.  I had the whole thing figured out and we were disciplined, and we managed to save up and purchase our first house within a year.  I was really nervous to purchase the house because, being the Dave Ramsey fangirl I was, my first thought was, "but Dave Says..."  Dave says don't take on any new debt when you're still paying the old stuff.  My original plan was to get the CC debt totally gone, then work on saving a large down payment while paying the student loans.  But, the hard truth is, apartment living sucks.  We had an adorable little townhouse, with less adorable neighbors and just downright unpleasant management.  We got out as soon as we saw an opportunity, which meant spending one of those little windfalls plus cashing in a retirement account to do it.

I don't regret our decision.  I love our home, and I think it was just something that had to be done.  And, with the tax credit, we came out ahead.  UNFORTUNATELY, we weren't smart enough to put back the money we had borrowed against the retirement or invest the money back into our home.  You know that feeling you have when you've been dieting for a little while (OK, for me it's like 14 hours), eating nothing but salads or grapefruit or whatever the fad is?  And then you just say, "screw it, I am STARVING," and you just eat everything you can get your fat little hands on?  I think that's what happened.  We spent so long saving and scrimping, we just got too hungry.  So here's my lesson, and it seems to be a common theme with me:  sometimes we make mistakes.  I didn't run up MORE debt, so that's a good thing.  I just wasted some money I probably shouldn't have.  Now the only thing one can do is dust themselves off and start again.  Consider me dusting.