95 Days Later.

It has been 95 days since my last post; just over 3 months. I really wish I could come back saying I found my passion or purpose and have figured a lot of things out, but that's simply not the case. I am also not going to lie and say I have been focusing and trying hard to fix myself, because I haven't. It's almost as if during this period I just gave up and forgot about everything completely. But the memory remains.

I still don't know what I want to do with my life, where I want to be, how I will get there, or what will happen. I don't know why I want to be rich. But I'd be a fool to say I don't want to be. I think everyone wants to be successful in life, and having money would just help my (and anyone else's really) life out in so many different ways. It just gives you so many more options. I want talking to my friend Matt and was saying how I just want to be able to have a house, car, and not worry about being in debt. Also I just don't want to have to worry about having to spend money here or there, and I currently do. However, I think the biggest relief would be that of helping my parents out. Through bad decisions over the years, they are in pretty bad shape financially speaking. Relieving them of this would feel so good.

Speaking of spending money here and there, I started a cashflow journal. On August 13th I started writing down every cent that I had spent, where I spent it, and whether it was a needed or optional purchase. I am doing this because I heard on a CD that is this is one of the first things you should do when trying to get out of debt; find out where your money is going. Now that I have a window of about 8 weeks, I can start to make some changes to my life. Here is what I have document so far:

In 53 days I have spent $1,101.50. Of this, I qualified $537 to be a necessary expense which leaves $564 that was spent that did not have to be. The numbers are pretty shocking to be honest, and that's exactly what the CD said would happen. On the CD, the example was about a family who was trying to get out of debt and they figured out that they were making $800 extra every money. By extra I mean after bills and necessary expenses. They thought they had made a mistake because they said there was no way they were spending $800 per month. Well, they got the advice of making a journal and low and behold, they were spending $800 or more every single month. Now came the hard part of changing their spending habits and committing to a budget so they could use some of that money to pay off debt, instead of wasting it. That is now where I am.

I won't lie, it would be nice to have $564 extra right now. My credit card could really use that pay off! I have been spending, on average, $10.64 per day, and $74.49 per week on optional things. I haven't even been spending large amounts, it just adds up so fast. For example, I'll spend $5 at McDonalds one day, $6 at KFC the next, $8 at Subway, etc etc. Now I know it is absolutely impossible to eliminate all spending, but one can certainly reduce it. I am going to start a small budget, and limit my optional expenses. I've been trying to think of a good number, and came up with $40 per week. I feel this isn't too small that I will feel upset about it, yet it is still almost 50% lower than what I have been previously spending. Of course if I only have spent $20 on Saturday I'm not going to try and make sure to get the last $20 in; I'll always try to limit myself to shoot for less. But $40 will now be the point that if I do happen to hit it, I won't be upset. But I will not cross over it!

Just for comparison, over the next 8 weeks if I spend an average of $30 (assuming sometimes I won't always max my $40 budget), that will be $240. That's $324 less than what I am doing right now, and that money can be used to chisel at my debt. Right now I am poor, so every dollar helps! Hopefully someday I can look back at this and find it silly that I was trying to save this amount of money, but for now it is necessary!

Just letting everyone know I'm still alive. (That was a joke btw, no one reads this!) I will start updating regularly again. Hopefully I will start to get in the groove of things! Write until you're rich!