Order

It's taken a majority of the day, but the hurricane flotsam on my desk has been cleared.  Almost needed to call for the Coast Guard. I've lived here a year and spent maybe ten hours in this room at my desk during that time. In two days I've doubled that.  The view's not too bad from my desk, I've discovered.


The stacks of files and folders have been sorted and put away.  (I'm a stacker.  Oh, Heavens, am I a stacker.) About seventeen hundred pounds of recycling is ready to be shredded.  I can actually see the photos under the clear desktop mat.  Perhaps this is just a calm before the cliched storm, but I'll savor it none-the-less.


Most important and remarkable today, I've stared down that monster of a quickie budget of monthly necessities only to find it's just a dust bunny.  I mean, it's not a pretty dust bunny, but the thing's no Alien or Predator either. I'm giving myself a self-congratulatory pat on the back. One baby step taken.


Of course, I had some help along the way.  Thank goodness for www.daveramsey.com and the forms available there.  Rather than having to create a budget spread sheet from scratch as I'd fretted about doing for the last month, all I had to do was click and print.  Very painless. Easy. 


I'm grateful, too, for the spending analysis Wells Fargo provides of my accounts online.  I was able to easily scan three months of expenditures in various categories to make more realistic estimates of monthly spending. Much more manageable than swimming in the vat of old statements I'd nightmared about. After a little tweaking of where the computer automatically filed purchases, all I had to do was be honest with myself.



My quickie budget dust bunny neatly positioned on my newly organized desk, I have to admit, I feel good.  And a little sick.  After reviewing where the money has gone these last three months, it won't be hard to trim off considerable fat.  Seriously.  A family of two spending nearly $2,000 on groceries and eating out during that time?  That's nauseating.


For the first time in at least a month, I'm heading to bed with peace. I'm not scared of what "might be."  Instead, I've got a realistic picture of what is.  And, what is can be handled. There isn't bold enough type, italics, and highlighting to emphasize how good that feels.