Two weeks ago I wrote about a new adventure: Paying off the 45K I own in student loans within one year. My promise was to report back every two weeks to give you an update on my progress. This is the first report and it covers the changes and preparations I’ve made over the past two weeks.

There have been a lot of changes over the past two weeks–all of them good.

First, I got a promotion at work. I’ve been working as a contractor over the past two years and I’m now a full-time employee. Short term, this is great. Long term…well, let’s just focus on short term for now, m’kay?

Movin’ On…Down?

Secondly, we’ve decided to downsize our housing. We’re moving from a 2-bedroom apartment to a 1 bedroom with a separate den. This move will save us about $250 in rent. Since I pay a little more in rent than my partner, that means I’ll be saving about $150 each month. My goal was to reduce my rent by $200, so that’s pretty good.

This sounds like it was easy, but it wasn’t. In the span of two weeks we found another place, signed a lease, put down a deposit, went to Vegas, and sub-let our place. Whew! If you want the play by play it went like this:

1. While I was at my favorite coffee shop, I saw a flyer for a cute 1 bedroom apartment not far from where we currently live.
2. I casually mentioned it to my partner, not really thinking much of it.
3. We decided to check out the place. Everything was great except the kitchen, but it had a nice deck and the price was right, so we applied.
4. The landlord was out of town and, due to a miscommunication, his son didn’t give him our application until a week later, so he had already rented the apartment. But he had another apartment that would be available around the same time and wanted to know if we were interested.
5. The second apartment was completely remodeled. We loved it and it was only $20 more!
6. I put down a deposit later the same day.
7. The day after that I went away to Vegas for a week on a work trip.
8. When I got back, we had 10 days to find someone to sub-let our current place.
9. We did it in 4.

Getting Busy with Budgeting

Thirdly, I’ve decided to get serious about budgeting. Or I should say, to actually budget. After saving my emergency fund in 2010, I spent the subsequent months living within my means but not following a specific budget. No real reason, simply because I could. And because budgets generally suck. Anyway…since I intend to pay off my student loans, obviously that approach won’t work going forward. I need to tighten the belt. Last week I reviewed my monthly expenses and decided that I would make a few changes, namely:

• Cutting back on my Spanish class – I pay my Spanish tutor $40 a week to make me feel dumb teach me Spanish. Starting in December, I will only have 3 sessions a month, instead of 4.
• Paying for my Spanish class from miscellaneous funds – Usually my Spanish class is an extra expense on top of everything else. Going forward, I will pay for my sessions from my monthly petty cash allotment, which is $200 a month.
• Reducing petty cash to $20 per week – Sound drastic? It is. My Spanish classes will take up about $120 of my petty cash, reducing my fun money to $20 a week. Boo…I mean, yay! The plus side is that it’s officially winter in Chicago, so I won’t be going anywhere for the next 5 months. Ch-ching!
• Reducing the grocery budget by $20 a month to start – I normally spend $180 a month on groceries. I’d like to cut this down without sacrificing my need for healthy food. I’ll reduce this to $160 to start and see how it goes.

Reflections

There are definitely some psychological changes that are part of this new adventure. For example, when we found the apartment and discussed downsizing, I kept making excuses.

“But I won’t have a separate office. We won’t have enough closet space. It’ll take longer to get to the airport.”

Blah, blah, blah. In the end I just didn’t want to change my level of comfort. In other words, I wanted the results without the sacrifice.

Over the years, I’ve learned to listen for the truth. And the truth is that I couldn’t find a reason for this plan not to work. I didn’t have any valid doubts, just fake excuses. So I let it all fall away and just went with it. For some reason, the experience reminded me of skydiving:

I went skydiving for the first time earlier this year. As we waited for our turn to suit-up and head to the plane, everyone kept asking me if I was nervous. “No,” I said. I wasn’t being courageous or arrogant. It’s just that in my mind there was nothing to get nervous about at that point. We hadn’t done anything yet. Even in the plane, I was calm as it rose higher and higher.

Finally, it was time for each of us to jump. One at a time, I watched my friends take the plunge. I still wasn’t nervous. Then it was my turn. I shuffled over to the door of the plane, the professional skydiver attached to me from behind. Then it hit me. I was about to jump out of a freaking plane! There was a moment when I was overcome with fear and I wanted to change my mind, but then a sudden calm came over me and I realized that the whole point of being there was to jump. This was what I set out to do. I couldn’t back out now! If I did, I would never know what the experience felt like. So I swallowed and told myself, “Just throw yourself out of this damn plane!” With eyes wide open, I looked down and jumped.

Here’s to jumping in.

Photo Credit: untitled/ephotography/CC BY-ND 2.0