fuck you, credit card.

This is a warrant for your arrest. I will henceforth be on the hunt for you, not to bring you to justice, but to kill you in cold blood.

Oh, don't mind me. That's just me psyching myself up to clean up my credit card debt. I've been carrying this thing for way too long, and rather than letting myself appease the spender in me, I've decided to get this over with so I can move on to better things.

The tough part is that I am not good at sticking to budgets. I let myself cut corners here and there, which really just hurts me in the long run. What I need is a solid plan, and a way to remind myself that every dollar spent on something frivolous counts against me.

Looking over my spending patterns, thanks to Mint.com and a healthy bit of time staring at bank statements, my number one unnecessary purchase is the purchase of coffee drinks. There are dozens of coffee shops in the area, and some of them serve the most amazing coffee I've ever had. Not to mention the fact that they all carry delightful pastries to go with the three dollar java. That adds up quickly, especially with the temptation on every corner.

Other spending pitfalls include alcohol & food. No big surprise there, and I probably spend less than a lot of people. I don't really look down on the purchase of alcohol since that normally includes some socializing, which is a good thing in this dreary town. The food, though... I have got to find a way to lower my costs effectively without eating horribly processed foods in the meantime.

One of my inspirations (aside from the whole getting out of debt thing) for feeding myself cheaply are the few $30 a month challenges I've read about where people try to spend $30 on groceries for an entire month. It sounds really intimidating, and like a lot of hard work, but if they can do it (and they did) for $30 a month, I can definitely do it for $100. If I can avoid buying lunch downtown, I can save myself at least five dollars a day. My main challenge with that is the fact that I'm not good about making lunch ahead of time, and I don't give myself time enough in the morning to eat breakfast. Hello, expensive pastries and overpriced sandwiches. This will change.

I started looking at weekly sales adds for the area grocery stores, and also looking over online coupons for household goods. The store nearest my home is marked up a lot, so really finding deals there can be difficult. I'm open to branching out to different grocery stores, but I just have to keep myself motivated.

There it is - my dirty financial secrets laid out. Now that I've made my confession, I can carry out my mission to eliminate this needless debt. Watch out, Credit Card. I'm coming for you.