Cheers

Tomorrow's always better, people.

Steph's work is taking them all out bowling next Friday, and since the Old Man has no interest, she's taking me to be her bowling partner! Whooo hooo!

That's three weeks of bowling in a row! (I have another bowling date on Saturday)And this one's free! Also, free beer and pizza! (because trust me, I deserve it, people!)

All that bowling is good for the ass. I'm telling you, though, my ass is really gonna have to start shaping up.

Today, at our work workout session, we added lunges to our sets and increased all our weights. Not just lunges in place, but across the gym. I'm not a weakling, mind, but I could barely get down the stairs afterward. It occurred to me that having a personal trainer is a lot like having an agent. That is, it's having somebody who can do/think about a piece of a process for you so you don't have to think about and you can actually concentrate on your work. Sure, you must be *aware* of that process, but you don't have to take up all your time worrying about it.

I don't have to remember how much weight I lifted last time or when I need to increase it or what exercise is next. They keep track of that and tell me and mix up the exercises every four weeks to make sure we're getting different types of workouts that keep us seeing results. I don't have to make up routines. About all I need to do is, you know, the actual work, and maybe count my own reps.

I could get used to this free personal trainer stuff.

Tasty, tasty work benefits.

The Return of the Overdraft

One of the things I discovered when I got my free credit report is that I had a student loan payment that was 120 days late.

I found this rather confusing, since I didn't remember receiving any kind of notice that this payment was due. I deferred all of my student loans back when I was unemployed, and two of the three of them duly resumed sending me statements after six months. Why this one didn't, I don't know, and in my hazy financially lazy mind, I figured they'd just granted me a 12-month reprieve instead of a 6 month, and never followed up.

My bad, yes. I'm financially retarded. I'm working on it.

I owed them $248 in overdue back payments.

I looked over the money I had in the bank, and according to my fuzzy math, I could pay them this and still stay in budget. I could make up the difference by paying less toward my CC payments next month (not paying the loan further injures my credit score).

But, once again, my lazy, imprecise "well, that's about right" math didn't work, and I overdrafted again for the first time since I started my new budget.

The real killer about the student loan payment is that it's another $64 I have to pull out of my budget somewhere. I'm honestly not sure from where. I can cancel the Netflix and maybe - maybe - take $40 out of my food budget and pay $10 less a month toward my old medical bills, but... well. I have to keep paying those huge payments to my credit card debt every month if I ever want to see the sun again, which means that money has to come out of things that are nice, but unneccessary. And no, I don't want to pull it out of my $100 fun budget.

That $100 fun budget is killing me as it is. Chopping that to $50? I wouldn't make it. What's that, a movie once a month and a couple Chipotle runs? No bowling, no coffee dates, no buying pants or socks when I need them. No occasional coke or peanuts or avocados.

I can barely do it as is right now.

I hate money.