counting my wins

I thought I was going to show this month who’s boss. I thought I had it figured out and that things would go the way I planned. Instead, this month is teaching me lessons.

 

After I reviewed my expenses for April and came up short of my own expectations (shocking), I decided to keep a closer watch on my transactions and spending to make sure I was staying on track. Turns out, monitoring the transactions coming through doesn’t really change the habits or stop the transactions from happening in the first place. I ended up trying to micromanage myself and it only added stress to an already unstable state of affairs.

 

At the halfway point of the month, I went through my expenses again. The numbers didn’t lie – I was not doing well at keeping my bad spending habits at bay. Seeing my non-success continue with little to no improvement from last month was really hard for me to accept. I knew I wanted to do better, but wanting it wasn’t enough. In my hour of lamentation (of which Thomas took the brunt) over the many, many ways I was failing at life, I was reminded (by Thomas, of course) that if you’re going to make lists, make a list of things that are good next to the list of things that aren’t. I just got a new position at work, and it took some guts to get. I have a good home in a lovely, colorful neighborhood. And I have a successful adult relationship with a man!! We live together! And like each other! And not everything’s always perfect and hunky dory but we’re happy together. It’s a nice reminder to not take my good fortune for granted.

 

Also, last month I decided to cut my shopping costs by a lot. Not shopping for clothes seemed impossible, but limiting myself to $100/month turned into a challenge for myself and my creativity. I had to look at shopping from a new angle, and I was eager to see success with it. But from a budget perspective, clothes aren’t the only thing that’s holding me back from meeting my financial goals. I have other guilty pleasures and daily conveniences that I overspend on, and I need to change my habits to help myself get on track. The Challenge gave me a test that excited my creative juices, but I struggled with finding the same excitement over some other areas that need trimming: dining out and transportation. During the previously mentioned lament-sesh, I also carried on for a while about my exercise deficiency and missing motivation (why not make it a party, amirite?). Thomas cut through my despondent blather and pulled together a plan that starts to make sense. Bring my own lunch/meals to work (obvious, but I still struggle to do this regularly). Not only will that cut back on dining out expenses, but it also allows more opportunity to eat healthier, which gets me closer to achieving world domination. As for transportation, I can honestly say that the VAST majority of overspending there happens when I hit snooze too many times and opt to drive to work instead of walk or take the bus to get to work a little faster. On a good day, I spend $11 on parking while I’m at work. On a bad day, I get a parking ticket that costs anywhere from $40-75. I wish I could say I’ve been good at avoiding parking tickets but I HAVE NOT. Thankfully we’ve entered into warm weather territory and I should have no issue walking to work every day. Not only will I save money on parking (tickets) but also get myself some fresh air and some exercise (!!) on the way.

 

All of this is a bit preemptive to be viewed as advice, since I haven’t really even taken it all the way myself. But one day at a time I plan to be better. And hopefully bundling up my goals into nice, neat little 2-for-1 packages will only help maintain my motivation.

 

All this is to say: the first lesson I learned this month is that Thomas is a keeper.

 

The second lesson is a reminder to something I mentioned last month, too: positive self-talk. This time, it revolves around forgiveness and just learning to chill out. I’m not going to come in on budget this month – probably not event close. I do know, though, that I have a lot of awesome things going for me in life, including some of the small decisions I made this month as I kept my budget in mind. I have high expectations for myself sometimes, but expecting too much only causes stress and I’m gonna pass on a second helping of that, thanks. It’s still a work in progress, but I’m learning to relax about not making my budget. My financial goals are still extremely important to me, but so is my mental health. If the opportunity presents itself to go have happy hour with some friends, I’m going to go and I’m going to enjoy myself. And I’m good with that.

 

 

Jerry Kiesewetter

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *