My Inaugural Post

Hey All!! I'm starting this blog as a personal homage to my favorite blog English Major Money. In April she decided to stop blogging so I'm starting my own. I seriously doubt anyone will read this but perhaps it will help me be accountable to someone so I actually follow through with the things I try to do.

I'm a horrible speller and have horrible grammar. Let's just get that out of the way, and I'm not too good with capitalization either so you'll tend to see that slip as the blog goes on.

But let's get started. I'm a 26 year old college graduate trying to get some kind of financial security and build up that nest egg. It seems that I'm constantly surrounded by people who make less than I do but are able to DO more than I can because they manage their money better. So, here I am trying to fix that. Yay me!

I am very fortunate and have zero college debt (love you mom and dad!) I have a mortgage of $946.48 a month, a car payment of $287.10 a month (which is paid off in January!!!!) daycare for my 4 year old son costs $420 a month and I have a debt management plan of $367.00 a month. Those are all of my fixed costs that cannot and will not change no matter how I change my lifestyle. And yes you read that right, a debt management plan. As in I racked up so much credit card debt that I had to call up a credit counselor and have them set up a dmp. The creditors were calling so what's a girl to do??? I research them through the national foundation for credit counseling and have been really pleased with the services I'm getting. Its a payment I can (mostly) afford and its helping to build my credit back up.

The dmp was set for 4 years in having everything paid off. I've been doing it for 2 now. I'm down to $7000 left. I'm hoping to use the money I'll be saving from my car payment to pay down my debt faster. But we'll get into that story later.

Credit card debt sucks. I hate it. And I know that I actually don't have that much debt compared to the average person, but I don't like it. I hate credit cards....I obviously can't have them. This would be because this is the second time in my 26 years that I have racked up over $10000 in debt. The FIRST time I did it, my dad paid it off for me. I really learned my lesson on that one didn't I? The second time I did it, I finally took responsibility for myself. Well at least I'm trying to.

So anyways, so starts the trials and tribulations of being a biology major in the real world, and trying to find a way to have enough money to pay the bills, travel, save, and just have fun. I hope you enjoy it