Blog Enhancement

I am so excited I found a way to track my savings and debts visually on my blog. Don't laugh at me I know its basic and simple but I am not all that tech. savvy !!

Any ways I have Split my financial information up into 3 general sections:

1) Debts

2)General Savings

3) Special Funds

I've spent the last couple of hours trying to sort this out. I will likely change it but for now I am very happy with it.

I will explain my reason for the splits in another post when I blog about when "life gets in the way."

The first steps to payin' off debt

In my last post I mentioned that I have several sundry debts to friends. I recommend that they be the first things you tackle. Taking my own advise the first thing I did was pay off Jessica. I owed her money for the last of our shared phone bill a total of $117.56. The second one I started to work on was my debt to Dave. Now he's not fully paid off, but because he is the biggest I wanted a good chunk of it paid. I have given him $270 of the $332.80 that I owed him. So $332.80-$270= $62.80 that I still owe him. He would have been paid off last month but 'life got in the way.' So he was willing enough to let me delay for a month. The topic of 'life getting in the way' I will talk about in another post. The other debts that I took care of was the $27.05 that I owed Dan. I am also happy to report that as of last night I have also paid of John which was $120.00. This leaves me with the last amount I owe to Dave and the full amount of $130.00 I owe Miranda.

Original sundry debt amount: $727.41

Current amount paid back: $534.61

Amount Outstanding: 192.80

About me

I got out of university just at the tail end of the most recent recession. Talk about a real downer. But we do as we must and I am chugging along.

Financial education was not high on family's list of things to teach us kids. My dad was a politician and my mom did mortgages. So ask me about mortgages and politics and I can tell you more then you would likely care to know. But when it comes to stocks and retirement funds, I am hopeless. I am not even sure my parents have it sorted out yet and they've had more time then me too.

So I have sought to educate myself.

I love watching the show: Till Debt Do Us Part and Gail Vaz-Oxlande has been very insightful with her tips. But I am not married and do not own anything but debt at this point in my life. As such most of her trips are good to have for the future, but have no baring on my current situation.

I have searched the internet and looked for financial books/ magazines for advice for people like me:

1) more (student) debt then income

2) minimal financial background

3) big dreams

And I have found snippets of advice but no real plan of attack.

So I am starting this blog to track my ability to get ride of the first item, build on the second item and realize the third.