Ok so, I don’t know about anyone else but I feel like I am continually struggling to be able to manage my own budget. Maybe it’s because I kindof suck at budgeting, by which I mean I can stick to a budget for maybe a month (if I’m lucky) and then it’s blown out of the water. However, I am unbelievably proud of myself because I thought I had really completely blown my budget this month and would have to reach back into my savings to dig myself out of this little hole I’d gotten myself into. See, recently, I’ve been giving a lot of money to charity and eating out quite a bit. The giving to charity bit, I’m actually pleased with myself about. The eating out and just spending money I shouldn’t, I’m a bit annoyed with my lack of discipline.

At any rate, I was just trying to balance my checkbook since I have been having the most miserable day at work ever. Yes, it is definitely one of those “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days”. But then I was doing my budgeting because I figured if it was going to be a bad day, I might as well get all my bad news out of the way, right? Right. And then I looked and I saw that the only thing that’s even slightly off this month is that I had wanted to be able to put an extra $10 towards my student loans. But seriously, if I’m only off by $10 and that is part of the extra I typically put towards my loans (because I’m trying to aggressively pay off my loans so I send more than the monthly minimum). That’s really not so bad!! In fact, I’m ridiculously proud of myself. Granted, I would be more proud of myself if I could, you know, budget and consistently put money aside into savings. But hey, breaking even when I thought I had completely blown my budget ain’t bad. In fact, I’d say it’s a step in the right direction. (Now if only the rest of my life could fall in line with that).