My first overall goal is to get my finances “back to even”. What I mean by that is that I want to get to the point where I know everything I owe, and setup a payment plan on everything. I need to do this so I can start setting up my budget. I need to get to the point where I have my normal bills and debt, and not have things hanging over my head that I immediately have to pay for, which unfortunately, I have right now. I need to come up with some extra money to do that, so I’ll probably have to get a second job for that extra income. I don’t really want to since my life isn’t exactly great as it is, but I think I’ll end up having to. After all, I have to start taking steps forward so I can improve my life, right!

My first step, then, is to figure out exactly how big a hole I’m in with my finances. I know that I have a bunch of money I owe to a bunch of different places. Some of the debts are relatively small, and some will take some time to pay off no matter what I do. What I need to do before anything else is figure out exactly what those amounts are and where they need to go. I have been lax on my organization when it comes to bills, and I got to the point where I was mainly throwing my mail away without even opening them. Of course, my first step appears like it might take some steps to get it done. Unfortunately, I don’t know off the top of my head how much I owe different places, and I’m not even sure if I could name every debt I had. That’s pretty bad, ain’t it!

So, Steps to figure out exactly what my debt hole is:
1. brainstorm about what debts I think I have, and write them down.
2. get a dollar amount for how much I owe each of them (via internet or phone call)
3. check credit reports for debts on there I might not have thought of
4. keep an eye on mail and see if any bills come in that I didn’t think of during the brainstorm.
5. create a spreadsheet with all of my debts, the amounts, and where I need to send payments. Basically all the information I can get on my debts.
6. Summarize my debts into one negative amount. That is my debt hole that I have to step myself out of.
Once I can see where I need to get to, then I can start taking steps to get out of my debt hole and throw off the chains of debt despair!

Filed under: blogging, debt, finance