Smile, Smile til it hurts

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I literally took a deep deep breath before I started typing this post, before I jumped in. I've started publicly announcing (twitter and facebook) that I am moving to Portland between October 14th and 21st. 
Why the deep breath? Well, I'm going to have to get really REALLY creative on how to get enough money to pay all my bills between now and then, feed myself AND get all of my stuff up there. 


The feat that I am attempting in the next month and some odd days is going to require hard work, self restraint and positivity. Because of this I may be shutting out a lot of the outside world. By that I mean I'm going to be turning off my mind to negative things coming out of other people's mouths. I've been weighed down by it the last (um forever) and I can't do it anymore. I want to find a balance but until I do I will be slapping a silly smile on my face and telling myself despite anything and everything I can do what I need to do.


So there's that. 


Sleep needs to find me earlier in the night from now on. Seriously.

Here's to 6 months in!

Just in case you haven't noticed I am going to be doing a lot of updating about my 25 before 25 list in the next couple of weeks. September is the 6th month of this ongoing project and so I really need to start figuring out what has and hasn't been done and doing fun posts to remind myself.

Just a list of updates on the list and what is to come post wise:

(refresher)

• 1-4 are not anywhere close to done
• #5: crochet another blanket is really close to finished
• #6 is going to have a lot of posts coming up, I'm at least 50% done with taking 100 flickr worthy pictures (here's post 1)
• #7 is waiting for colder weather and for my 2 blankets I already have planned to be done
• #8 is technically done, I've already read 8 for fun books but I haven't blogged about many so might start that one over, here's the 1st post
• #9: finish two self help books has been done but again I didn't blog about them so I did one post tonight and I might read another s-h book
• 10: cook for someone else at least once a month has lagged for sure and I have no way to post the past, I'm picking it up again this month and I will post this time!
• #11: ride spectrum ferris wheel is still in the works though I've gone twice since March and it's been closed for repairs!
• #12 & 13 are waiting
• #14 make 3 collages is 1/3 done and I combined it with #15: paint a picture (Make Art Your Life)
• #16 Finish both paint by numbers is almost done, I'll do one post for both
• #17 take a road trip DONE! Palm Springs, I'll do a post this month
• #18 Hot Air Balloon ride is going to have to wait for money, and may even have to wait until next year (we shall see)
• #19 get of anxiety meds is being put on hold due to the plans for my future... one of which includes going to Argentina for 6 months... it would be REALLY helpful to have that little back up that is a low dose of meds during that time. The place is crazy different from here and if while I'm there I decide to fully wean off then yay! Until then I've gone down 50% on my meds. Awesome actually.
• #20 Figure out next career goal/move: easy it's PHOTOGRAPHY!!!
• #21-25 are still in the planning stages and will have updates in the 2nd 6 months :)

Yay meeting goals!

#9

Found Here

Tonight I started (and somewhat surprisingly finished) On My Own Two Feet (25 before 25 #9, 1 of 2), a personal finance book written specifically for women. It maybe took me 2 hours tops while also chatting on fb chat and looking up different things and making personal calculations.

The book was fast and effective definitely. I still have a lot of questions about what I should do with my money (once I have it considering I have VERY little at the moment) but I'm tired of living paycheck to paycheck and I've been avoiding these kinds of things for YEARS and now I want to be responsible enough to blow my money on bigger life experiences like Argentina or moving to Nashville, not paying off my credit card with a bounty of interest or my car that was way to expensive for the income I had when I bought it. Life lessons indeed.

After reading the book I figured out what my minimum monthly expense is (I factored in rent though I don't pay that quite yet) and then figured out what my emergency fund should be. I should start by saving $2,000 and then build it up to about $7,000.

I feel like that's a lot of money right now. I feel like anything is a lot of money right now. I'm not sure how people seriously get paid over $50,000 for work they do unless they are a programmer or a doctor/dentist or anything. I am PISSED that pro football/basketball etc get SO MUCH FREEKIN MONEY. I will never understand that. Ever. I don't care if they may get hurt doing what they do, they took that chance. I don't care that so many people watch these games, SERIOUSLY, half their income and put it towards the poor in each state... or, if you don't like that kind of charity put it toward the schools in that state. Sorry, end small rant.

Point being, the book is a great first step toward figuring out what to do with my money. It's not something I love to think about because usually it just stresses me out but it's necessary and if I start figuring everything out now as best I can then I will be a lot better off in the future. Or so they say. :)