Yup. Probably because I look at the things I have bought as little monsters. These tiny little monsters that hang around, hide and pop out at random times to remind me that I spent money on them. For instance, today, I was going through my yarn stash and I found some of the most hideous, frightening, yarn I have seen since my days of becoming a self proclaimed “yarn snob”. I pulled some things out and looked at them like, really? Really? I spent money on this? ugh! I have little monsters hiding in my yarn stash.
Then I look to my bookshelf. Little language book monsters just sitting there, waiting for me to pull them out again and actually put them to use. Little monsters in plain sight.Waiting for me to put down the bookmaking book that I’ve picked up or the knitting magazine I’ve become re-obsessed with. Am I ever going to learn Italian, French, Sign Language or enough of the dirty Russian to be able to communicate semi-fluently or even cohesively? Not with them sitting there on the shelf, I’m not. And that’s my own fault. I made the effort to invest in my learning a language (or five) and haven’t taken advantage of the resources to actually do it.
After that, I look back at my credit report. Ugh…a bunch of tiny little monsters hiding in one big monster’s belly, is more like it. This big monster is the scariest thing I have ever come across, the monster of “the reality of where I stand financially”. In all honesty, two years ago, it was a much bigger monster in comparison to now…now it’s a medium sized monster with even smaller monsters inside, bouncing around, creeping, hiding and crawling. At this point, it’s more annoying than anything else. The unfortunate thing about this, medium-sized, annoying monster, is that the only way to make it go away is not by wishing, it’s by throwing money at it.
So, it’s a New Year again, organizing, moving things around, regretting the bad purchases and wishing I had taken advantage of the books on the shelf and the time that I’ve had to get this all done. I’m done letting myself feel guilty and I’m making a new plan for myself. I’m taking this year to clear out all the debt. Clear out all the little monsters hiding on the shelves, in the baskets and in my credit report. All of it is going…I’m slaying the monsters, one at a time and come this time next year, I’ll be talking about the new plans for when I finish my bachelors degree.
My goals, for this year, is tackling one little monster at a time. Thanks to my parents for giving me this Dave Ramsey book (it was a little monster sitting on the bookshelf, but I’ve since converted it into my new best friend), which is my long term ticket away from the scary money monster. It’s pretty awesome that since January first, in just nine days, John and I have paid off three monthly bills, one class payment and will have two more paid off in three more days, which will leave us the rest of the month to actually get ahead and pay off some other little nagging monsters that have been nipping at our heels.
Gotta love New Years. 
<3 Lindsay
