New Focus

I have decided that my new focus in life needs to be balance and that this may be a good way to keep track of my progress. I have a very detailed (read: obsessive) budget that I try to stick to and I'm planning on doing the same for budgeting my time. The following are the important goals for me and how I feel about them.

Debt
Through a series of bad decisions (who am I kidding, it was just ignorance) I racked up quite a bit of credit card debt. It is less than the national average for someone my age, but it still does not make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. I first began to change my attitude about my credit cards when their balances totaled around $7000 in 2008. I made some lifestyle changes in order to free up some money and make bigger payments but I did not have a good budget in place and still ended up putting things on my credit card when my cash ran out. This kept me treading water for a long time. I buckled down a little more and paid off the largest card (balance was $3500 at its peak) by January of 2010. I have been steadily chipping away at the remaining balances for the last year, but unfortunate circumstances and events always popped up that had to be put on credit cards. I also have a car loan (that's a whole other story) that is begging to be paid off. My balances are currently:

Chase - $1875
Citi Card- $935
Bank of America - $1040
Car- $3800

Right now, becoming debt-free is my priority and I would like to think I'm doing an okay job of it without throwing the rest of my life out of balance (i.e. living off of Ramen or in an unsafe neighborhood). My credit cards should be paid off by June, if all goes as planned.

Saving
I currently have a couple of very sad, lonely savings accounts. One is through my regular bank and is meant to be easily accessible and the other is for more long-term savings. Savings 1 (regular) will be for emergencies and special purchases but the meager $300 it currently holds won't do me a whole lot of good. Savings 2 will be for down payments (new car, house, etc.) but the $400 in there can only get me a used scooter and a cardboard box, so we'll just leave it there for now. I'll worry about saving for a house later, but I hope to be able to afford it in the next 4 years and definitely before I'm 30. I already have a few planned expenses this year that will draw on Savings 1, and inevitably some un-planned ones,  but that's what it's there for. I really hope to have the recommended 'three months worth of living expenses' cushion in Savings 1 by the end of the year but that might be a bit far-fetched. By the time my current car is paid off I should have enough in Savings 2 for a respectable down payment on a new car, which brings me to my next goal:

New Car
I've never had a brand-spanking-new car. My first car was a late 80's model Ford Bronco II with a manual transmission that my parents bought for me before I even had my license. I tried to learn how to drive it but I was so afraid the damn thing would tip over that they decided to buy me a 1991 Toyota Celica GT instead. I LOVED that car. It was sporty, reliable, and most importantly it was really hard to roll it. In 2007 I decided to move 30 miles away for school and my parents wanted me to have a newer car (the Celica had 220k miles on it, not that it matters with a Toyota) so they made a deal with me: as long as I stayed in school and made good grades they would pay for my car. Sounds good, right? It was, until I stopped going to school and ended up paying for a used 2005 Ford Focus that I would never have chosen for myself. I was going to sell it a couple of years ago and get a new (or at least, new to me) car but made the painful decision to eliminate my credit card debt first. All in all, I really want a new car and it will be my gift to myself when I dig myself out of my current hole.

Family and Friends
This one is pretty simple. I'm surrounded by wonderful people that I love and that love me and I have to make sure that I don't get too self-absorbed to appreciate them. I also have a 4-year-old cat named Stella (named after the beer, not Streetcar) that I adopted when she was 11 months old and a 14-month-old American Foxhound mix named Ruairi (it's Irish, pronounced "Rory") that I adopted in January. My goal with them is simply to get them to like each other. It's harder than it sounds. I'm hoping to achieve this through spending enough time with each of them and through being consistent with training Ruairi.

Health
I've never considered myself a terribly unhealthy person, but there is a LOT of room for improvement. I have been trying to have a more balanced diet, though the cans of spaghettios and the hot cheetos still slip in there every once in a while. I also need to get in the habit of exercising 4-5 times a week. This can be anything from going to the gym (I'm lucky there's a really nice one in my apartment complex) to taking Ruairi for a long walk, to hiking on a Sunday morning. I think I'll have to enlist a workout buddy for this one. Another part of being healthier is going to be finding time to de-stress, sleep, relax, go crazy or just hang out. Oh, and I suppose I'll quit smoking some day.

So, I get really overwhelmed sometimes and sometimes I don't know where to start with any of it, but then I remember that I already have started and all I have to do is stay focused on who, what, and where I want to be.

"Life is like a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving." - Albert Einstein