The start of a new MEG...or something.

Well, after reading many PF blogs, I'm deciding to get myself into one. I want to work my way out of my debt, and it's inspiring to read what others are doing to get there.

A little about me... I'm 23. I grew up in the Midwest. I now live in the Southeast. I have been out of college for 1 year, 9 months, 8 days. Since then? I packed my stuff to move south, took a job, came back to the Midwest, canceled the job, took a job at a jewelry store, quit two weeks later, took a job at a soybean plant, quit one year and two weeks later, moved to the south, took an internship, took a two-day-a-week-to-pay-the-bills temp job, and got my current position as receptionist and AAE at my current company, an advertising agency.

Good year, huh?

Well - unfortunately, I fell victim to a lot of first-time-career people my age: I started getting those salary checks and felt like I was a millionaire. You get this overwhelming urge to spend money on something that you feel like you "owe to yourself" because you've worked so hard through all those years of school to get this paycheck. Well, spend I did. And instead of using my nice entry-level salary check on paying my student loans down, or paying off that college credit card, or gathering a wedding fund, or a house fund, or a savings account of any sort................ I spent. I bought a beautiful dSLR camera (that I couldn't live without, now). I bought a 50" television. I bought 7.1 surround sound to accompany said 50". I bought everything I always wanted to for my family at the holidays. I drank beer (too much, some would say)... joined a mug club. Had a 30 minute (35 miles) commute to my salaried job (when gas hit $4.65 a gallon ... ouch). Aaaaaaaand... bought myself a car. So yeah. Needless to say, I came out behind, as opposed to ahead.

I'm trying to get my poop in a group, now. I've got a salary again. I have health insurance again. But I have more bills than ever before... and more bills in the near future that I want to be saving for (wedding & house funding). Lucky for me, I am now living with the man I was in a LD relationship with for too long, and he's on board with getting us out of debt by paying the house bills for the time being. Hopefully, for both our sake, I can get myself out of credit card debt (at least... and deal with the rest later) quickly. From there I'll be able to contribute to the bills.

We'll see where this takes me!