I’ve been thinking a lot about money. Mainly because my blog of the month reading has consisted of financial blogs – mostly Mr. Money Mustache, which I highly recommend if you are interested in getting serious about saving or even retiring early. 

For my entire adult life, I have considered myself to be succeeding if I was breaking even each month, with a little left for fun money. I have never made big bucks, but I  have always figured out a way to make things work…but likewise, even when I was making 45K or so a year, my expenses were so high (living solo, driving too many miles, etc.) that my savings rate was never great. 

When I went to graduate school, I really thought I could get a significant pay raise with my degree, so I thought 20K of debt was no problem and didn’t even bother trying to pay any of it off during school. After all, I didn’t have any undergraduate debt (thanks Mom and Dad!) so I was better off than many. 

Of course, I didn’t foresee struggling for over a year to find work in my field, settling for a boring desk job, and then taking a pay raise that was really a pay cut because it came with no health insurance or other benefits (besides vacation)…also, no opportunity for a raise…and very limited opportunities for my husband to find work nearby. 

And meanwhile, Ross’ amazing success story of going back to school, working in radio, building his own teaching studio etc. is not nearly as amazing when you realize how much debt he picked up at school….and a decent portion of it in private loans. 

So while Ross has payed off his credit card debt (!!!) and I have paid off my cat medical bill debt and I’m almost finished paying off my own medical bills thanks to charitable care, we still have a huge amount of debt between us. 

So my new obsession has become getting really serious about finances. Saving more and paying off debt will be the focus for the foreseeable future. And I am posting it here, for accountability. Ross and I have big dreams, dreams of achieving a level of financial independence where we only need to make 15K or so a year to live – which would let us pursue our creative projects with abandon. 

We will have to work very, very hard to get there. But thanks to Mr. Money Mustache, I believe it is actually possible. And if you want to contribute to the cause, let me know. 🙂 We have lots of skills to share.