Being an adult is hard :(

I just made the first payments on two of my loans, $221 total. $221 of my precious dollars = a whopping 0.0043% of my loans paid off. And I'll have to make another payment at the end of this week to a third lender.

Can I go home now?

At the very least, I can consider myself fortunate to have convinced the fourth (and most formidable) lender to give me another 12 months of forbearance, but when you consider all of the interest that is going to accrue during that year it's really not as great as it sounds. *sigh* I am fortunate to have a college degree, but find myself wishing sincerely that it wasn't so expensive to get.

Also, I have a bit of a spending problem. I made a valiant attempt in August to create a budget and balance it, but then sort of stopped - the way I do with a lot of things (weight loss efforts, I'm lookin' at you). It was stupid to do because six months later, I realize that I've been completely and utterly OUT. OF. CONTROL. the past half year. I've saved absolutely nothing and bled myself dry financially numerous times. Aka, doing everything I swore to myself I would not do when I reached adulthood and maturity and all that other grown-up shit.

But, here I am, with practically nothing to show for six months of solid work. Except some nice clothes, great makeup, pretty jewelry, several awesome movies watched and a ton of food (good and not so good) consumed. But I can't live like that if I want to do practical things like, I dunno, save for impending disasters? I have enough clothes. I have enough jewelry. And god knows I need to stop spending money eating out or grabbing high-calorie coffee beverages. But it's so difficult to factor in the big picture when I'm on my lunch break in the middle of the week and it's cold and I have nowhere to go except this nice, invitingly warm coffee shop where everything smells so good...

Blah. I'm not necessarily terrible with money, I can save when I need to. But I have the same problems with money as I do with food - incapability to say no to my impulses. I know in the back of my head that getting chicken strips after I've had a coffee and Wendy's at the mall is not a good idea, especially when I haven't worked out in 4 days due to a combination of familial invasion and a touch-and-go immune system, but I ate them anyway. Because I wanted to. And the same thing goes for spending money - I know I don't need another pair of pearl earrings or two new books when I've got a thousand at home unread, but I wanted them.

It's time to grow up and separate need from want. If I can't learn to control my impulses and say no to my spoiled inner child, I will always be broke and unhealthy.

I am going to start off fresh with this new month, February. I've had a good time in January implementing workouts and healthy eating into my diet, but it hasn't been enough. It's time to fully commit, 100%, no holding back. And budgeting must go along with it, because can you guess what my most out-of-control spending went toward this past month? Food. Most of it on-the-go crap from places I know won't provide the nutrients and fulfillment I need each day. Just crap, crap, crap. And that simply won't do :)

I'm afraid tomorrow's scale reading won't be a good one, but I'm not going to freak out or get upset. I'm just going to get back on the horse, like I did last week and prevail.

PS: See The King's Speech if you get a chance - it's marvelous!