2012 Saving Plans

Two years out of school, I’m still overwhelmed by student debt. So before the new year, I decided on my resolution to Save, and pay down this debt. I thought of two quick ways to do this, change my phone plan to something cheaper that would provide me with more services and the second, to open a Tax Free Savings account. Check and Check, off to a good start.

At the beginning of the year, I went to lunch with some family and we decided to start our own Family Savings Group. Four of us agreed to go on a cash allowance. I get $100 a week of play money, which for me is quite a lot. Weekends are the worst for me, as spending during the week is limited to morning coffee, but that was a bit much. Now that I only get to carry cash with me, I’m more aware of the fact that I spend almost $10 a week on coffee.

So far so good, 3 weeks in and I’m still keeping with my new year resolutions, now if i had bought a gym membership for new year, I wonder if I’d still be on track…

Just For Me

This week I did something just for me. I know this seems so simple, but in my case, its not. Everything I earned and saved went towards my education or making myself a better job candidate or employee. This meant staying home, while my friends went out because that $100 would be better spent on my GO pass to school or that new dress shirt for work. This has always been my mentality.

Then last month, a friend of mine spent a lot of money on herself and I thought, how can you do that when you’re in so much debt? Wouldn’t that money have been better spent going towards your loan? And she just replied ‘No. That would mean that I would never be able to buy anything for myself. I don’t want to live like that!’ And it made me realize, heck, I don’t want to live like that either! But I was…

I’ve always been responsible, focused on my needs and not my wants. Sometimes it was sad, and lonely because I wanted to have fun, but I also wanted to walk out of school with as little debt as possible (which, when paying for your education up to the Masters level on your own, is really hard to do!). But now, I’ve decided to just take a breath and relax… I can admit, I can be wound pretty tight, but I’m trying to enjoy life now, and not just survive it, so this week I did something just for me. It has no other purpose than to make me smile and feel good about me. It won’t affect my grades, make my resume look good, make my employer see me as a more valuable player, it won’t do anything, but make me feel good about me, which I need, clearly, if I have to post about it… so…

I joined a belly dancing class =) I’m really excited! It’s something out of the box for me and different and brave…? I’m happy that I’m doing something that really has no other purpose other than to just have fun.

One of my great friends is from Sweden and when I told her about my belly dancing class she told me “You need more things like this to treat yourself! We have a saying: be your happiness own blacksmith. You gotta make yourself happy you know.”

I’m working on it =)