Phail

Yeah....I suck at challenges, apparently. Having nice italian dinners (two nights in a row!) just turned out to be more important to me. So I went over by $40 (which went promptly onto the discover card).

Eesh.

But every paycheck is a new chance to succeed in my goals, so I'll be thankful for that.

What I did succeed in was my very first personalized financial plan for a friend! Thanks, Buddy! Not that I'm any sort of proper source for actual financial advice, but it was nice to be able to point somebody I care about in the right direction. And really at this stage in our lives, the first few steps are always the same: savings, debt reduction, controlling expenses. Not rocket science, but surprisingly hard to figure out at the beginning. And in the middle.