A Fool's Journey

I have been a fool. For the past several years (I remember the moment as a freshman in college when I signed my life away on a promissory note) I've been accruing large amounts of debt. Each month I dig the hole a little deeper. Each month I hemorrhage more money.

I spend on things like books and exercise equipment. I toss my money at $9 beers and extra miles on my car  and in my gas tank as I commute to three or four different suburbs of Detroit each day.

I don't budget. I impulse shop. I don't plan ahead for car repairs or new eyeglasses, and I take a hit each time fate deals me a lousy hand.


WELL. 


That stops now. You see, I've got big plans for my life, and many of those plans are not going to be possible as long as I'm hauling around massive amounts of debt. As it is, I'm currently putting myself through my Master's, so I'm even more broke than usual and can't make major debt repayment strides as long as my university keeps walking off with whole paychecks at a time. If I ever want to be financially secure enough to go back and grab that PhD (meaning not working a lucrative job), I need to get myself debt free.

I made myself a snowball plan with the few extra pennies I can scrounge each month, and if I keep on track, I can have everything paid off by August 2018. With a big spending freeze, and with finishing school in December, I can probably do it a little quicker. So that's where I'm starting today.


This is day one of a complete spending shut-down, and already I've had to suppress several knee-jerk spending inclinations. In retaliation, I'm going to write on this blog as I go in order to remind myself of my precious goals and hash out ideas for making a go at life without all the usual spending. 

Today I've got a draft due for a manuscript for publication for school. Once this draft is out of the way, I'll be updating regularly to keep myself in line. 

Thus begins a Fool's journey. 

Wish me luck. 

Sorry Friends, I'll be laughably boring for a while.