Let's Not Talk About Money, M'k?

I cannot believe how fast these days are going by. They're great days, and I'm having lots of fun and learning a lot, but they're just flying by me like nothing else. We're almost at the end of February. This weekend is Callan's birthday, next weekend is our night with Liza and Janire, and the weekend after that, I'll be in San Francisco! After that, time will keep flying and we'll be doing our sexy photoshoot for Jess' birthday, then my conference, then hanging with Anya and Jeff and Jen and Mark in NY and then it's almost April!

Whew. I need to take a breath. I feel like I'm in overdrive a little bit. The good news is I'm doing well with everything. My health, my body, my brain, my work, my friends, my family, everything seems to be in balance. A negative person might think that this is a sign that something is about to go wrong. The optimist that I am thinks that negative person might be right, but damn it, I don't care because my life is great right now and that's all I have to worry about. That's the attitude I try to keep, anyway.

I love looking back at the past 4 years and seeing how far I've come from the scared, heavy set, stressed out, confused girl who was somehow full of wonder and awe at all of the opportunity and the world around her. That girl was too scared by her bosses to sit in and contribute in a Zip Car meeting. That girl who was not too scared to take off to New York City without a place to stay on a Friday night, knowing it would all work out. That girl was me, and I'm proud of who she was.

She's grown up a lot. Boy, when I look back on all the mistakes I made with my money back then...and my bills...and my life. But that was just part of growing up. Now, I know to stock money away into savings, pay off my credit cards when I can, and not to rack up too much excessive debt, although as I learned even this year, I suck at following my own rules sometimes!

By reading blogs and paying close attention to my debt and bottom lines, the important thing that I'm gaining this year is an overall awareness of my financial state that was just coming into being a few years ago. Seeing how far I've come since college is an even more drastic change. I don't know how I lived like I did, leeching off of my loans and making big purchases and never looking back. I was not accountable for my actions and it manifested itself in debt and poor life choices. But now, 6 or 7 years later, I am worlds farther than I was back then and making rather good choices.

I'm working on pumping up my 401K, my savings account, and paying off my credit card debt. Less than $1800 to go on that last one. And then, I am doing my best to stay credit card debt free for 1 year. That is one of my goals. In that time, I should be able to build up a healthy emergency fund of a few thousand dollars for things that come up and then I'll never have to rely on my credit cards again, except to help build my credit and earn me free flights! That was not such a bad bonus of getting my Southwest credit card, though my overzealous use of the card and racking up $2500 in debt was not so fun.

I'm on an unofficial shopping hiatus right now. I am only buying: food, pet supplies, toiletries, household essentials and occasional dining/drinking out. Otherwise, all of my money will go to bills and savings. This is going to be hard with traveling, but I think it'll be worth it once I hit $1000 in my savings account and (gasp) maybe even can take some out of there to use for trips in between paychecks. It's hard right now, since I'm paying back my two (TWO) 401K loans and I just increased my 401K contributions AAAAND taxes went up for 2013. So my paycheck looks and feels pretty measly. But I'm probably getting a raise (fingers crossed) in March and HOPEFULLY a bonus to help eradicate a bit more of my credit card debt. And then, a few months later, my loans will be paid off and I'll have more money to put towards my goals. My new money mantra: MAKE IT TO AUGUST.

Money Money Money, MON-EY

All I want to do is shop. I want to buy clothes. Bags. Shoes. I want to buy presents for my friends. Presents for my family. Presents for Dylan! I want to buy Dylan helicopter rides, movies, music, books, T-shirts, clothes, shoes. I want to buy him things for his car, his room, for our house together someday. But I know that I should live within my means for now. Pay off what I've spent on my credit card in the past few weeks, and start putting all my extra dough in the bank. It'll serve us better in the long run, and maybe in the not-so-long run, if we decide to move in together this January.

I wish I made more money. I wish my raise had been a little more than it was. I wish it were easier to earn more money doing the job I do. I am hoping that the initiative I've taken this year in taking on new and different projects and creating documents that can grow the future of my department will make me a more valuable and worthwhile employee- worthy of giving bigger raises to! I think the thing that would matter the most in terms of money would be a promotion. I would need to be promoted from assistant vice president to vice president. I don't know what kind of leap that would mean salary-wise, but I'd be happy to find out!

I think the past couple of years, my raises have been a little bigger than the one I got this year, so it seemed like kind of a let-down, instead of, "Oh! I got a raise! Awesome!" It was more like, "Oh...only that? Ok..." I wish that I had it in me, or that it would matter, if I could fight for more money. Demand more money. Do people do that? I feel like corporate jaguars do it. Are corporate jaguars a thing? If I work for a big company like FTI now, can you negotiate for more of a salary? If I could do that, wouldn't all of the contractors working for Comcast negotiate getting things like sick days, health insurance and a pension? You'd think so.

One of the cool things about the money I make right now is that 3%of my salary goes into my 401K, which I just learned many people do not even begin saving for until they're into their 30s or 40s- crazy! I had a 401K at my first job out of school. Unfortunately, it only had $1000 in it when I switched jobs, and I had to remove it all if I didn't want to transfer it to an IRA...and at the time, it mattered more to be able to pay my rent while I was in transition than to save for retirement. But it's important to save for the future, and that's what I'm doing now. What I like about my 401K versus my savings account, is that I can barely touch my 401K. I can't go to an ATM and extract $20 from it. I would have to make a calculated decision (and be heavily taxed) to take money from myself.

I'm hoping soon to have a nice hefty sum in my savings account too, so when I need an extra $100 here or there, I don't have to turn to credit cards, I can just remove and replace it in my savings account when it's convenient for me.

I feel like I'm getting close to a place where I'm completely responsible with me money. But things like going out to dinner, crisp packages of stationery, cute new dresses, amazing boots and cups of hot tea from Starbucks will always be calling. And I have to learn to budget my money, like I budget my time. I feel like I'm worlds better at budgeting both of these things than I was 5 years ago, but I still have irresponsible instincts with both sometime. I wonder about that from time to time. Is it OK to have days or nights, where I don't do much of anything? I have nights like that with Dylan, where we kick back and watch TV for hours on end...but after that, I end up feeling very warm and fuzzy but not very accomplished. I think it's important for me to feel accomplished. I think I mentioned that yesterday, in fact...I'm sensing some THEMES for my 750 words a day here, people! Let's see what develops next month, where I'll try to write every SINGLE DAY.