In Five Years...

In five years:

- I will live a balanced, active, fulfilling, meaningful life

- I will be maintaining my goal weight

- I will be employed at a career type job that challenges me and I am passionate about

- Financially I will have:

o Paid off student loans

o Paid off car

o Healthy savings

o Healthy and diversified investment portfolio

o Healthy retirement plan

o House/condo or be saving up for 20% down payment

- I will live in urban area with stuff to do

- I will be involved in things outside of work (including volunteering)

- I will have around 10 close friends that I will visit and communicate with regularly and many acquaintances

- I will be in grad school (or have already finished) in a rewarding field for me personally as well as professionally

- I will have a cat

- I will travel often or as part of my job, possibly already have spent some time abroad

- I will be in a healthy committed relationship and possibly be considering having children

The Difference between Men's and Women's Emotions

Navigating through women's emotions are like walking through a pit filled with quicksand patches. You can kind of tell that the ground where the patches are is murky and different, but you might go through it anyways because there's no grass. Also, the quicksand forms after a heavy rainstorm (event) so you might have an indication to look for quicksand patches. If you get caught in one, the more you struggle, the deeper down it will suck you. there is a long, laborious process to get out of the quicksand.

Navigating through men's emotions is like walking through a mine field. There aren't as many mines as quicksand patches though. It looks perfectly harmless, the grass is growing and pretty, you're happily skipping along, and then all of a sudden out of the complete blue, you step on a landmine set up 25 years ago (possibly before you even lived in the area) and it explodes.

Life Fufilled

Wow! Suddenly my life is completely full! I made the decision to make my life more fulfilling and meaningful, and then here a month or so later, it is!

I have a surplus of weekend plans! Several people invited me to do various things; three people have offered trips in the past week; I literally have had something outside the norm to do every day this week! This is crazy! I love it.

I finally feel settled into where I live. I have a good social life going, my financial situation is improving drastically, and work is good. It makes it difficult to face the decisions I'm going to have to make in the coming months. Especially when I know moving will take me another at least 6 months to adjust. I don't want to ever feel stuck though. Things are coming together for me in my life, and I caused that. Woot.

Credit Card Debt - NO MORE!!!!!!!!

Hello world!!!!!!!!!! Great news!!!!!!!! I just paid off the last of my credit card debt. I am officially credit card debt freeeeeeeeee! It's been a couple years coming, the last year frustrating after graduation and not having an excuse to have credit card debt anymore. It seemed so easy to me to get into a better financial situation, but it's not. To finally achieve this goal, I buckled down and have aimed for spending $20 on groceries per week; switched to cash ($100 per paycheck for gas, food, etc); cashed out my stock; stopped living beyond my means; and cut up my credit card so I would STOP using it.

Next steps:

1. Pay off personal loan of $140 (April 2011)

2. Personal loan of $500 (April 2011)

3. Emergency fund of $1000 (May 2011)

3. Private student loan of around $2500 (currently monthly payment $50) (September 2011)

4. Car loan of around $15000 (current monthly payment $275) (October 2013)

5. Government student loan of around $15000 (current monthly payment $250) (October 2014)

I think I will!

My horoscope for today: Treat yourself to a leisurely morning as you enjoy the creative, romantic vibes coming in from la luna. If you want to poke around your favorite blogs and gossip sites, so be it. Your brain actually needs to relax before you can shift back into high-productivity mode. When the moon enters your workerbee zone this afternoon, you can double-time it and finish all your tasks with a renewed sense of inspiration.

Sounds like a plan :)

A Year in Time

One of my sorority sisters asked for advice on her Facebook page whether she should move 30 hours away to another city for a good paying job or if she should stay in her home state. I recommended that she go for the good paying concrete job and try for a year. Maybe she'll love it there. If not, she can gain experience and get in a better financial situation to move back home.

That's basically what I've been doing. I've heard that it takes a year to adjust to anything. I've been pondering lately if it is better to pursue financial stability and professional career or to pursue happiness and love. Basically brain vs. heart. Logic vs. passion. Logic won last time. After a year, I wonder if heart will win.

Update on $50 Challenge

I ended up spending about $16 last night on groceries...

This is what I came out with:

- whole wheat noodles

- whole grain sandwich rounds (not Nature's Own but another brand that looks more natural ironically)

- 4 apples

- 5 yoplait yogurts

- local newspaper (it's not published online...)

- a whole dozen organic eggs (on sale for 90 cents!)

- Rice milk

- black beans