Money Issues

After my last post, I did something I normally do and stood back and said bullsh*t. I can focus on more than one thing at a time, I just need the right mindset and a program or routine to do it. I have successfully meditated for 60 days simply by putting it in a place in my day I knew would work and sticking to the routine. I get up, make coffee, empty the dishwasher, meditate. Easy. So I need to just make walking and financial stuff easy too. When in school, walking is easy as I walk to and from school. Now that I'm on break it's a little harder. I've been walking Mavy back from the park and that helps a lot, but I would like to get more steps. Just need to add the routine of taking him out in the afternoons. I would like to do that when school is in any way, so that's something I need to work on. As for the money......... 

I realized yesterday that my view of money is a little skewed. It's not unlike my view of working out and eating. Let me explain, I will have a goal. It will usually be an unfocused, not very specific goal. Such as, I want to walk more or I want to eat better or I want to save money. Not very specific and therefore easy to fool myself that I've met it. For example, when I started AltShift I generally felt like crap. Everything hurt and nothing fit. I started with the goal of not only losing some weight but to feel better. Well, I've reached a point where I feel pretty darn awesome and so recently (especially since break started) my eating and walking have gone to shit. And I justify this by the fact that I feel good and that was my goal in the beginning. This leaves me very unfocused and easy to fool myself into thinking I've reached my goal. Well, the same thing was happening with the money. I had a vague goal of saving money. So I set up my paycheck to send some money to a savings account every paycheck. Awesome right??? But what was I doing that for? What was my goal with that? Just to save money? I once read something that said basically that losing weight in and of itself was not a goal. Well, that seems to apply to money too. Just wanting to save is not really a goal. So I looked at some things more carefully and realized that I did have a goal in mind. I wanted to be rid of all my debt except for my student loans. We don't have a ton of debt, but I really do want it all gone. So I am using that money that I am putting in the savings to help pay down my debt. I realized that having $1200 sitting in an account was nice, but having $8,000 in credit card bills was not. Using that savings to pay down those bills seemed like the best idea ever. So I used the savings and paid off 2 cards. Woot Woot!!!!! Next paycheck I will pay off 2 more and then start tackling the big ones. This makes more sense to me. I have a solid, definable goal that I will know when I reach. I also think this will help keep me focused on not wasting money because I do have a solid goal. So when I want to spend money, I can think will this help me reach my goal of being debt free? If the answer is no, I don't spend the money. And face it, I blow a whole lot of money in a month. So I have a goal and I have a plan to get there. I think I will be all good with this. Now, I need a goal and a plan for my health and fitness.....that's up next.