Owing nobody nothin'.

Freedom is my WHY in life (yeah, I love Simon Sinek too). To encourage this, I want to be completely independent with my finances, and having monthly car and medical payments doesn't exactly encourage the feeling I desire of being unchained.

On September first I started a spending diet. This is different from a spending fast, because I get a $150 budget every month for my Wants. The goal is to pay off the rest of my wonderful LASIK surgery from last fall, as well as "Ruby", my new (used) little wonderful Prius that I bought in June when I traded in the old Avalon.

Here's the breakdown

• Still owe on LASIK: $2,568. Monthly minimum is $184, 0% interest (which rocks, but I still want to pay it off ASAP).
• Still owe on Ruby: $15,525.47. Monthly minimum is $270, 1.79% interest (not too shabby, but... debt is debt).

Les Rules

1. Minimize spending on Needs if possible.
2. Only $150/month for Wants.
3. If I mess up before the end of the month I have to do something kind for myself, that doesn't cost any money. Like write myself a nice letter.
4. If I don't mess up by the end of the month I still have to do something kind for myself, that also doesn't cost any money. Like go on a victory hike. Or make myself a very indulgent dessert... Like these paleo donuts I made once. Omgsogood.

Needs (this list looks really long, but hang with me):

• Rent
• Utilities (I can have fun keeping this number down)
• Groceries: Organic, free range, non-GMO, quality. ($200 monthly budget)
• Pup expenses: Food, meds, treats, occasional antler or toy, 3 days of daycare/week, nail trims.
• Car: Gas, repairs, one monthly vacuum (it's $1 and my car needs to be clean for work purposes).
• Monthly Roth IRA contributions.
• Insurance: Auto, health, legal, business.
• Business expenses: LLC, website, yearly certification fee, iPhone w. data, virtual assistant (Angela actually makes me more money, with her amazing warmth on the phone/over email), quarterly federal tax payments, toolkit essentials, lawn care bags, Boomerang/gmail, LastPass.
• Car payments: Pay off during diet!
• LASIK payments: Pay off during diet!
• Natural/chemical-free toiletries: shampoo, soap, deodorant, sunscreen. Anything else is a Want.
• Household items: TP, dish soap, hand soap, detergent, water filter. I'd like to make my own detergent when mine runs out! Anything else is a Want.
• Medical: copays, chiropractic work, dentist, medication/pharmacy if needed.
• Travel: Family trips (holidays, etc), weddings of closest and dearest friends, annual winter SCUBA trip, work-related trips that get reimbursed. I can counter some of this by meeting with some of my first clients from the NJ/NY/DC old haunts, when I find myself in those areas.

Note: I know that doggie daycare sounds indulgent, but I just don’t believe that he should sit bored and alone at home all day every day while I work, just because I'm doing a spending diet. But I will do my best to minimize costs by taking him to my friend Shannon’s house for the day so that he can romp in her back yard with her dog/his best friend Fiyero- this is $9/day, and that is miles better than the $22/day that I pay at the pro daycare place. Also I am terrified of clipping his nails, and messing up and hurting him, so I think the nail trim is a need. Also, the travel thing may sound indulgent, and it is. But travel is my very favorite thing. If I don't give myself adventures, I wilt and wither.

Wants $150/month)

• Dining out, take out, coffee shops
• Alcohol
• Salon services
• Excessive/unnecessary items in any of the Needs categories
• Toiletries that aren't listed above are Wants: makeup, creams (coconut oil works great), hair products other than shampoo, etc.
• Household items that aren't listed above are Wants
• Clothing
• Jigsaw puzzles, music, movies, books, audiobooks
• Movies, concerts, etc... So I really need to pay this off before the next Weird Al concert!
• Yoga/Zumba classes
• Guitar lessons (sorry Ben, but I can budget for it if I'm careful!)
• All other business expenses: advertising, networking, tv segments, education
• Dry cleaning
• Gifts: includes holiday and wedding gifts.
• Travel: work trips that aren’t reimbursed, all else.
• Everything else!

How I'm doing so far

Not bad- I've spent $98 on groceries so far this month, and the budget is $200, and it's past the middle of the month, so that's awesome. However I'm getting close to the end of my $150 Wants budget- $24 left. The first $126 has been spent on meals out (my friend turned 50!), two iced green teas at Scooters doing planning sessions for a workshop with my friends Mona and Robyn, a pair of sunglasses at Target when my other ones broke (but I fixed them- so now I can return these), a $16.50 gym day pass to hang with my girl Shannon the day before she got hitched (hip hop class, sauna, hot tub... money well spent!), a jigsaw puzzle and a baking sheet at Savers ($3.03 with my Savers coupon), a $12 Groupon for a haircut, and a glass of wine at a goodbye gathering.

I could have done without the glass of wine, but I did it purely for social pressure reasons (which is nobody's issue but my own): everybody was drinking wine or a wine slushie (we were at a vineyard after all) and eating snacks that people had brought from home or the grocery store, and I hadn't brought anything because I had come directly from work. So rather than sit there empty handed and feeling awkward (which I should have done! I mean come on, spending to relieve social discomfort is just SILLY, Eliza), I bought myself a glass of wine so I would have something to, I don't know, hold in my hands. And then I ended up eating some of the snacks anyway. #classact.

But I feel I'm doing really well overall. I have not begun hurling money at the loans yet- with the first few funds that rolled in this month, I've just been fluffing up my checking and savings accounts, for a little cushioning, before the big payments begin.

The ultimate goal

So I pay off my loans... Then I plump up my savings account... And then what? I'm doing the Dave Ramsey stuff way out of order... I've got my initial $1000 and I'm already contributing the max to my retirement fund, so debt and savings are the big next steps but then... I don't ever want to be a home owner (remember, my big WHY is freedom, and I see home ownership as a burden more than a happy thing), so no mortgage step. Also I shall have no kids to send to college, so that step is out. So once I'm debt-free and have a healthy savings... What is the next step? This is the ultimate question, and I don't have a big exciting answer. But I'm toying with a few ideas...

1. Living on the road for a year with Mr. Petri and finally doing The Great American Road Trip (we probably have the best country in the world for road trips).
2. Living somewhere remote for a year to unplug and practice zen things.
3. Doing a blowout SCUBA trip for 2 months so that I can be a dive master... But I have a doge, and I don't want to be away from him for this long. So this may be a way-in-the-future thing.
4. Going to Antarctica and Australia... I want to see both by the time I'm 40.
5. Moving somewhere else. Maybe Cali or Denver. Maybe Italy. If they let American doges in.

So there you go. All travel-related.

Final thought... Haters, off you go!

Before I go, I want to say that I've seen some pretty snarky comments at the bottom when I read articles about other people doing a spending fast... Comments along the lines of, "Well if everybody did this, the economy would tank", or "Yeah well you don't have kids, so there's a whole set of expenses that you don't even have to deal with." Or, my favorite, "Some people don't decide to have a spending fast... They just have to because they are poor."

Really? So I shouldn't do something that challenges myself because other people have it worse? Okay you win... I will never do anything hard ever again because it might be insensitive to those who can't decide to do something hard.

I know I have it good. I think it's pretty awesome that I'm aware of that, and that I'm responsible with my money. And the, "you don't have kids so this is way easier for you" argument that I see on other blogs just makes me laugh... Because I don't have kids, but also because the implied attitude is, "I chose to have kids, so my debt is more okay than yours is."

Debt is debt. I like Mr. Money Mustache's argument that debt of any kind should be treated like a big, flaming emergency.

I applaud anyone who takes control of their finances, assuming they have the ability to. Debt is a HUGE problem in America- it has become the norm. By choosing to limit spending until I'm debt-free, I'm choosing to remove myself from a national problem by DOING, not whining. I feel pretty solid about that!

photo from theodysseyonline.com