Coffee Time Again

I LOVE coffee!  Wake up coffee time is often my favorite time of day.  Listening to the radio and dinking around.  The getting up part is not so fun but the thought of coffee gets me out of bed.  Strong coffee, a little sweetener, some milk and I'm good to go.  My favorite thing about coffee is it something I love that is not on my list of things I need to quit or cut down on :0)

I still need to update my spending.  I've never been good about managing my money.  Most of my working life I've had someone take care of it for me and just give me an allowance.  My thoughts went like this...  If I were married, one person is usually the money person.  I'm not in a relationship, I'm not a money person, so makes sense to get someone I trust to handle it.   It actually makes my heart race, whenever I deal with my money.  Just one of the things I am having to learn about, and get over, to make this RV thing happen.  I'm moving slowly and making a little progress every week.  The lucky thing is, I acknowledged I wouldn't do it, and found someone to do it for me.  That kept me from getting into tons of debt and kept my credit rating good.  I still have some debt and that needs to be paid off before I start my new life.  That's why there is a two year delay between my decision & hitting the road.   I've been using Quicken to follow my spending since November 2009.  I don't like it! Not sure I ever will.  I know how important it is to track where every dime is going now, so I can live my new life securely.    Once I start my LLC, for working as independent contractor, I will use a Quicken product to keep track of business in's & outs.  Dipping my toe into Quicken is good practice for me.  Where the heck did I get "money issues"?  No bad experiences with finances in the past.  No particular excess or lack of money in my upbringing.  I'm not particularly biased against math or numbers.  Who Knows?  It is a fact that I have to get over it to make this happen and I WANT this to happen. 

My computer game (Everquest II) is a blast!!  Had fun last night.  Amazing what they do with these computer generated worlds.  Truly is a separate planet.  Different economy, social structure and environment.  I can see how people loose themselves in these fantasy worlds.  Don't worry...  I'm not on may way to an Oprah Show about online gaming addiction :0)  It will, however, make for a fun vacation this week.    The best thing about this hobby is it's CHEAP.  A word I have come to value since planning for my lifestyle change.  On RV-Dreams.com , Howard details how he tracks their spending and income.  He is also VERY good at showing how important it is, when there is no fixed income stream.  Of course, he has an acoountant background.  He makes it sound easy and matter of fact.  Somehow, he wrote about it, in a way that it was not scary to me.  This is what I heard as I read about the financial stuff...  "so take that number and divide by 12, pay that much a month, and you're debt free in a year.  If that number is not managable, keep dividing, until you find a number you can pay per month.  The number you divided by, to get the number you can live with, is the number of months it will take to get debt free."  Howard makes more sense and is more eloquent than I am.  My head got it! My heart is slowly catching up with the process.   

Just an example of how I operate.  I was supposed to catch up with my financial tracking yesterday, I'm about a month behind.  In the light of what my life goal is right now, it's crucial that I do the financial work.  I skipped it.  I played and read blogs.  The fishies are important too, don't get me wrong, but in the whole scheme of things... Not so much.   So I wrote about avoiding the fishies.  Brains are strange and wonderful things.  I'm learning to work with mine.  Who would have EVER thought there was so much personal exploration (and growth) that would go into the preparation fo full-time RVing?