the secret life of mees.

I have to be honest with ya'll: I used my credit card twice recently. After the check for the bat removal clears and my student loans are taken out on Monday, I'll have a whopping $33.41 to last until Friday's paycheck. Have I mentioned how high gas prices are right now? $3.75 a gallon on my way to work today. Yikes. It's going to be a close call.

But I digress. On March 29th, I paid $32.10 for a full day of doggie day care at Camp Bow Wow. The hubs and I were supposed to go out that night for a friend's 30th birthday celebration, so I didn't need Molly destroying the house all day and night. I ended up having a migrane and staying in, so if my future-vision was working properly that day, I could've avoided that expense. This was also prior to finding out just how much it would cost to have bats removed from the premises. Damn future-vision.

Yesterday, I paid $25 to the NJ Civil Service Commission, but I can't tell you why just yet.

There's another secret I've been keeping from you and it's a doozy. It'll probably help you understand me better, but you'll probably also be a bit surprised and/or disgusted.

This is not my first go around on the credt wheel. I've been here before, albeit not with this much money. When I was a sophomore in college, I had three open credit cards. I don't remember what the combined balance now, but it was more than I was comfortable with only working 3 or 4 days a week on campus. I called Consumer Credit and was set up on a payment plan. While in the plan, you had to sign off that you wouldn't use credit cards and you had to complete their online education program. Having taken a personal finance class the year before, I blew through the online test without actually attempting to learn something. About 6 months before I completed the program, I signed up for Card #1.

After the hubs and I got married, we took about half of the monetary gifts we received and each paid off one card. Now, most of the items charged on my card were wedding-related items, but I still feel this guilt that the money was essentially wasted, since the card has a balance on it again after only a year. Clearly, I had learned nothing from my past mistakes.

The good thing is, I think the third time is finally the charm. I get it now. I can look you in the eye and tell you I have a shopping problem. I was in the jail at work the other day and my co-worker was interviewing a guy who had an extensive shoplifting history. He said when he didn't have money for drugs, he would shoplift. He said he would get the same high clearing a metal detector as he could hitting the pipe. I think almost everyone has the capacity to become addicted to something. I certainly could have. But no more. I'm done. I have to be.

Day Thirty Seven Spent: $0.00
-------------------
Day Thirty Seven Saved: $0.00