OK, OK, luckily I only have one follower!

Yeah, yeah, so the 25 day thing didn't work so well.  Let's just let it go now and move on to bigger and brighter things....

It's the middle of November and that means, in Steph's financial terms, that it's time to prepare for the new year!  Basically, this year is kaput.  We've already made enough bad decisions to follow us into the new year.  Now it's time to figure out how to deal with that.

I often look back on the time we were saving to pay of our debts and buy our house and think, "how the HELL did we manage that?!"  Because at this point I really do not know.  I can blame the fact that I no longer bring in an income, but really my income was so small that I don't think that's the real reason.  I think we just set our eyes on the prize and made it happen through sheer determination.  Once we attained the house, we haven't truly devoted ourselves to any other goal, and because of this our budget has suffered.

For me the new year will, hopefully, bring a renewed focus to getting our finances in order.  I DO have financial goals, it's just that up until now none have seemed as pressing as buying our house was.  But now that Sallie Mae wants to take all of our money to pay for that business degree I'm squandering, it's time to tighten our belts and get some shit done.

Today I am motivated.  Sucky time to find motivation, really, what with Christmas coming up and all.  And I know of these money-saving ideas for Christmas, but I cannot seem to follow them.  Christmas is my weakness, I LOVE buying gifts, I cannot resist shiny new wrapping paper (even if I have a closet full from last year), and I think I spend more on cookie baking than any rational person should.  I have started shopping early, thinking that would help me find things on sale and kind of spread out the spending so it wouldn't hurt so much, but oftentimes this just makes me nickel and dime myself to death. So we'll see what happens in the next month.  Lord, give me the strength to not max out my credit card between now and then!