Finances

I posted a few days ago about taking some time off to visit my parents, maybe go to Gettysburg. Well, I've done a bit of an about-face since then. I was doing pretty well for about a year on my goal of becoming debt-free. However, in the last few months I've really lost my focus and the only way for me to get it back is to concentrate on paying it off and getting more into my savings. To do this, I'm putting off any travel for the next 6 months or so. I told my family so they know I don't plan to travel for the holidays, and they understand. They want me to be financially secure. I'll still have that stinkin' student loan for a while, but this way I can get everything else out of the way and then I can put extra money toward the student loan.

I have one exception that I will make. If my sister visits my parents at some point, I will probably go ahead and visit at the same time. She's in CA and I'm in PA, so we try to make plans to see each other if one of us is on the other coast for anything and have a little extra time. A 5-6 hour drive to NY is cheaper and quicker than the flight from Philly to San Francisco.

It's going to be tough, but I'm trying to keep the big picture in front of me. How great will it be to only have that student loan to pay off, and then not even have that? It's also important to me to boost what paltry savings I have, as I work for a nonprofit and if the government starts making budget cuts nonprofits will probably be one of the first sectors to really feel it. We are a successful nonprofit, but we do get a lot of funding from government grants.

Now, that's not to say I'm not going to take any time off. I do plan on taking a day here and there and maybe do something local -- go out to Longwood Gardens on a work day in the fall, go to Fireside Stitchery during the day to pick out some nice threads for the Christmas gifts I'm making, etc.