Stuck in the money rut.
I am stuck smack in the middle of a money rut. I am starting to get really tired of thinking about my money or personal finance in general. I used to be diligent about keeping track of stuff in Quicken, but I have not updated my file in probably close to a month. I keep an overview by glancing at Yodlee or my online banking. I pay my bills and do some little things here or there but big picture stuff is escaping me.
I think it is a little bit of several factors. Part of it is I have just moved so I had many extra expenses related to that have set me back and money overall on both on a bankroll sense and a monthly outgoing basis is tighter. Another factor is I help my parents who are both older handle their bills and day-to-day financial stuff so I get an extra helping of dealing with the money stuff. It also probably does not help that as a topic I read a lot about personal finance and investing because it can be interesting to me and I probably need to take a little break from some of that reading. Maybe read a novel or do a puzzle, something different!
I think the biggest factor though is that I am not making the progress towards my financial goals like I want to. My net worth direction is going in the opposite direction that I want it going in. I am not living some high life full of HDTVs and Playstations, overall I am a pretty frugal guy, but past mistakes and family boundary issues have me stuck between that proverbial rock and a hard place that I need to keep working to break out of. I could write a whole slew on how I could blame others particularly on the boundaries issues, but in the end, I am the one who made the decision to say yes when I should not have.
I will figure my way out of this rut with time, right now I just feel like I’m sitting in the middle of a large financial hole with my little shovel trying to make a little headway and getting nowhere. So I will just have to take a breath, give it some thought and prayer and take another day at a time.