Jake’s Life

Stephen over at Inside Stephen recently admitted that he has been doing some reflection on his position lately, and so has Closet NS. I have to say that I have been too, and without their posts being catalysts. I am looking at two things, which are related in many aspects, and a third that is always looming over my head.

Finances. While the Holiday Season overtime is nice and certainly helps any time of the year I hate having to take away from sleep or my time with Sandro to be able to save money or just have enough to get by. With student payments looming over my head on top of other bills I’m going to be heading into rough times in the coming months.

Last year I was in a similar spot and looked at my monthly income. I owned my car, paid very little insurance, downgraded my cell phone plan, got rid of my storage unit, and took care of some other things to bring monthly expenses down. This year I’m looking again, and have financed a brand new car, pay twice the amount for insurance, will now have to pay student loans (an extra $138 per month), as well as having my rent raised. I also need new work boots and contact lenses. All of my current bills are mainly based on need or obligation and therefore cant be realistically eliminated.

What I have done is look at my daily spending: Starbucks twice a day on work days means $132 per month, on top of my stops at fast food and convenience stores while at work. That’s my loan payment right there and then some. I’ve also canceled a few…ahem, web site subscriptions…which should add about $40 per month.

Work. Travel to and from is perfect (a take home car would be better though!), and despite the previous work issues I’ve had the atmosphere is fine now.With my shiny new degree I would also like to be able to tap into more of my potential and continue upwards. Its the money that is killing me, though. Which leads me to my third item.

Fitness. I’ve covered it before but not recently, and that’s my issue! I need to test for a better job, but the physical area is the worst for me in the testing process, specifically core strength and pushups. Yeah the test isn’t that many but for me it seems very daunting. There’s really only one way to combat that though!