Meeting of the Finance... Week... I Dunno... Eleventeen?

It's been a hen's year since I've brought up my financial life. The short of it is this: I'm still in debt. I have the same shitty job. Yet strangely enough, I remain optimistic. Perhaps that's the American in me. When I was 5 months old, I accidentally swallowed a tiny American, brimming with enthusiasm and a can-do attitude. Much like the Sarlacc Pit, it will take him a thousand years to be digested. That's my goofy American friend who lives in my body!

A while back, my girlfriend (nay, fiancée!), Jessica, loaned me some money to attenuate my burdensome credit card debt. Since then, I've been paying my card off monthly at around triple the minimum requirement. The only thing I've purchased with it since then has been an engagement ring. I've been scatter-shot about snowflake payments (I tend to do them when Jessica reminds me), but I have been making them. Despite my noble donations to the debt monster, paying off this card is a much slower process than I anticipated it to be. I'm not in a stagnant position, but I need to close the gap faster.

In addition to paying my monthly more-than-minimum fee and snowflaking (working on average $5 a week), I hereby decree that I will put all extra money I accrue outside my day job hours into the credit card. Theater work, monetary gifts, boons and prizes, petty crime... all will be funneled into my debt's gaping maw.

I say this a lot, but if I don't keep pounding it into my head and vagina, I'll never learn: I must be extremely vigilant about my finances. Last week I discovered I was overdue on a bill. I hadn't set up an email alert and I plumb forgot about it. That cost me $24 that I hadn't budgeted. I'm going to work to condense all my bills into one virtual arena so I can stop fumbling with papers and calendars and receipts. I mean, really. That's so 1998. My paper system in a fancy binder has been useful, but I have been making too many miscalculations and screwing up bill due dates far too often. My bad math skills (which I will eventually improve) are holding me back and, on occasion, costing me money. I will rectify this by getting it all onto my bank's website. And maybe I can find an online budget management site that will do the math for me... and hope I don't get a virus.