Firefly's Personal Finance Blog

Darn, darn, darn. I just lost a whole entry. Here I go, here I go again...

Yesterday, I went to Whole Foods. I got some good things including some pork ribeyes to make pork chop rice skillet. I made that late last night and just put it up since I got dinner from their deli.

I got the $5.99 plate for 3 side dishes. I got shrimp/sausage/chicken jamabalaya, with cauliflower cracklins which was roasted roasted cauliflower with peas, and sauteed cabbage. It was all very good but, probably very salty as well.

I weigh myself daily and I had put on 3 pounds overnight. What?! It was so funny because I started hitting my scale because I thought it was stuck or broken. Then I remembered what I had eaten yesterday. I can't gain 3 pounds in less than 24 hours on 1400 calories. So I'm chilling out and drinking plenty of water.

I brought some cherries that I bought by my parents' house today on the way to work. These cherries ended up costing me $11 to my surprise. They're very good though. My mom called me to come by and get some food. I got some beef stew and black-eyed peas. I had some brown rice in my freezer to go along with this as well.

I really need to start cooking more. Especilly now that I'm starting school and not working as much overtime. My dining out is definitely where I could stand to cut some money. It just gets a bit tiring eating the same thing everyday, what with living alone.

I don't know why I never considered that there were sites for blogging about your finances, but imagine my surprise when I search for something else and stumbled upon this. I visit so many financial sites, but this is an entirely new concept for me.

So let me introduce myself. I'm 29 and single. I bought my first home last year. I'm working full-time on the 3-11 shift. I will be attending graduate school on alternate weekends starting in 3 weeks. I have two undergraduate degrees, the second earned while working full-time so I feel a little bit prepared for this.

Graduate school will cost $18.5k. I have paid the $500 deposit which comes off the original amount. Then there are $4.5k payments over the 4 semesters. My employer paid $1k. The remaining $3.5k will come from Stafford loans. Yes, more loans when I was so close to paying off the small loan from my first degree. I incurred no loans the second time around. My mom says she will pay $5k toward my tuition the last 2 semesters.

My immediate goals are to build up my emergency fund, a car fund, and a short-term savings fund, which I will call my Christmas fund. Why I call it that I'm not sure as I will end up using it for more than Christmas.

I got paid today, or actually now it's yesterday. Today's check reflected the $0.72 an hour that all state workers received. Not a huge amount, but $1500 a year, and every little bit counts. I'm going to increase my savings to start funding the aforementioned savings accounts.

Today I went shopping. It's called tax free weekend, but you actually still pay 5% local taxes. I got some school supplies, some groceries, an outfit, and some hand soaps from Bath and Body Works. I haven't shopped like that in quite a while!