Forced Progress

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I've been forced to start working on Goal #43 aka, Create a Money Management Program aka Make a Budget. It's a good thing to have a budget, I just didn't want to be forced into making one. I have many jobs, but my full time job has cut my hours almost in half. Damn this recession BS.

Due to the depletion of my income, I have been forced to closely monitor my money so that I can make rent, pay school loans and my car note. Those are the 3 big ones. All my other bills are not as important. I'm very good with my money, but I find as I am getting older, I am starting to worry more and more about retirement, the future etc etc etc. If I think too much about it, I get overwhelmed and can't think straight, so I try to live in the present as much as possible.

Therefore, I've started looking into budgeting programs. What I would like is a program that I can plug numbers into and it does the work for me. If you know me, you know that I am terrible with numbers. If I have a program that can tell me how much I'm spending versus how much I take in, and tell me how to make it better, then it's one less headache.

When I wrote this goal for myself, in my mind, I really wanted to write everything down so that I could figure out a way to put more money away in savings. But the reality of it is that I've actually directly been affected by this recession of ours. Just the other day I was talking to a friend saying how grateful I was that I hadn't been affected by it, but I suppose I spoke too soon. I better make sure to knock on wood next time. My manager says it's only temporary, 3-4 months tops, but I don't believe her. She is assuming the state of the economy will be better in that time frame and that our company will have more money. I think that's a huge gamble.

I'm not much of an optimist sometimes, so I'm just going to assume that this is a permanent change. Plan for the worst, hope for the best. I'll make it through August with my current situation, so I figure I have the rest of August to get this budget thing in order. Any ideas?