One Million and Beyond

Frustration with my Finances

By Matt - Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

When I first started writing this blog I was in a pretty rough financial situation but things didn’t look all that bad because I was making a pretty good salary at $75K per year. A few months after that I took a 33% pay cut to take a great opportunity which meant I was down to making $50K per year. I have to say that as a result of this the year was a difficult one but I was able to cut down on my expenses and slowly, very slowly, cut down my debt. Since I was let go from that job in February I started my own business and I took a full time contract where I’m responsible for a greater aspect of my money (such as taxes). The good thing in this setup is that I have more flexibility and the potential to pay less in taxes. The unfortunate item is that I’m making less still (Now I’m at $30K plus a great commission structure).

My frustration with my finances extends greatly to myself in that I’ve been making job moves and adjustments based solely on the position at hand and how it would help me. This current position/contract is one that I really like because it exposed me a great deal more to sales from the ground up. I’ve only been doing it for 3 months so my exposure has been limited but I am really starting to get frustrated with never having money for anything and paying my debt very slowly.

The net result is that although I’m still making ends meet I don’t know if I can continue to do this for an extended period of time. Any form of emergency will send me scrambling to find a way to come up with money which isn’t a way to live. I have a microscopic emergency fund which again is something I would like to grow.

I have learned a great deal about personal finance since I started this site and read a great deal about the topic and it boils down to being able to improve your financial situation by two means. The first way to do it is to cut down on expenses and to live as frugally as possible. I have tried this and had some measure of success. I know it’s possible for me to spend even less but the reality is that I don’t want to eat Kraft Dinner 5 days a week or give up having a bottle of wine here and there. I don’t spend nearly as much on food, going out or drinking as I did even a year ago but there is a point where cutting back means completely altering your lifestyle. I would rather not go in this direction if I don’t have to.

Which leads me to the second means of improving your financial situation and that is making more money. Unfortunately I haven’t been doing a very good job of this. My salaries and income have actually been going down over the past couple years and I’ve tried to supplement it a few ways here and there with minimal success (the $3/month that Adsense ads make on this site simply don’t make enough). My side projects are have been slow in getting done because of life and the need for some downtime. I believe that I am now at a point where I need to shift gears from saving even more money to making more money. I have an opportunity to take a salaried job that would bring me back in line with what I should be making but that’s still just an opportunity.

I’m just frustrated with having no money and juggling to save and make ends meet. It’s time to make more money, the opportunities to do this are there (even if we’re in an economic downturn). Ok my rant is now done – thanks for listening and keep reading I’ll start disclosing a bit more about my spending and earnings and how I’m trying to make more money. I’m done with the frustration and trying to get things done by only cutting back.

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