It's Cold Outside!

Not really, but it is snowing, if you catch my drift.

I started to get serious about personal finance a couple of months ago. A lot was changing for me: I had just switched jobs and received a 12K salary bump and things were starting to get serious with a guy I had been casually dating. It's easy to live an extended adolescence in New York - I'm 31 years old and live in a cute, but smallish apartment with a roommate - but for the first time I could start to see adulthood creeping up on the horizon.

I'm currently making literally twice what my salary was when I first moved to here in June, 2003. My paycheck has increased steadily over the years thanks to a lot of hard work and a couple of bumps and promotions, but my lifestyle and credit card debt went up as well. Some of this is forgiveable: I live in the one of the most expensive cities in the world and was just starting out in my career. I tried (and contine to try) to live as frugally as I can. I slept on a matress on the floor for a while, but I eventually needed furniture. And work clothes. And food. But I also attended 13 weddings in 36 months, the vast majority of which require travel. Stuff like that went on the card.

Anyway, here we are. I'm officially making about $1K a month more than I need to live a relatively comfortable life, albeit one that does not include serious saving or investing in the future. (Although, to my credit, I have a regular and a ROTH IRA, but I don't fund either agressively.) My first plan for this extra money was to ditch the roommate and live on my own. I thought about that for a while. I researched neighborhoods and priced apartments. I poured over decorating magazines as if they were porn. But then I realized that if I moved out on my own right now I'd always have credit card debt. In fact, I think it was an act of consumate maturity that I decided to stick with the co-habitation for another year and use the extra cash for debt reduction and savings. So that's where we are.

I don't make a ton of money. I work in nonprofit communications and my salary is fairly average. But for the first time I can see myself getting married and figure that my financial house should be in order before I do that.

When I first started reading personal finance blogs, snowflaking was a term that I saw popping up all over the place, so I decided to give it a try. This month alone I've snowflaked $201.80 to my Discover Card, cash that came from selling some books and DVDs on Amazon and some leftover money in my utilities budget. I don't expect to send that much every month, but I'm loving the progress.

More to come in the new year. Hope it is a happy one for all!