First Post Party!

This is my first post! Or as I like to call it, the day after the day after the beginning of the rest of my life. (Happy New Year!)

All good new years start with resolutions, don't they? I think I heard that once.
Because if you've got nothing you want to change, there's probably something wrong with you that you just don't know about yet. Or something like that.

This year I've decided to tackle my finances head on. This may not end well and in reality it may look more like a bear wrestling match than anything else, with me representing the not-bear side of this contest. But I feel like I should at least try. My mother always said you can't jump off that bridge with all your friends if you don't put one foot in front of the other. So here's to leaping!

I want to do a number of different things here. I want to chronicle ALL my spending. And by ALL, I do mean every single tiny penny that goes from my hand into the coffers of someone else. Lunch purchases, Target necessities, vending machine dollar bills that I don't think matter but in the whole scheme of things add up to a whole lot more when you're talking about 3 or 4 sodas a week plus those awesome potato skins that aren't enough food to last 10 seconds once they're open.

I want to try to pay down some of my debt. I have approximately $51,000 in student loans, spread out over 2 companies with 10 different loans. Plus I have a few other minor bills that don't total nearly that, but I would like to eradicate them as well.

I have other bills to pay every month. Living expenses, if you will. Rent, Utilities, Cell Phone, Gas, Food, Insurances, Parking. And they all deserve capital letters because they are all non-negotiable.

I don't pay for internet and I don't pay for a lot of other extraneous expenses. The state of my closet can definitely attest to that and my DVD collection is looking kind of worse for wear. At this point though, I could stand to get rid of some of the stuff I don't use in favor of things I will. But first, we must figure out where the money goes before I can spend it on stuff I want and don't really need.

I can't promise that I won't write about a slew of other things here besides money and finances. I will at least try to limit those posts to a minimum.

I also have other goals/resolutions for this year. They include such things as:
1. Read 100 books this year
2. Try at least 1 new recipe a week
3. Write a novel

Well, I have rambled enough for now.