Now the only problem is that le computer is still very dusty and irritable, and eventually it will just say, "Eh, screw it," and shut itself down when it gets overheated. It adds a certain drama to the process, I feel. Will I get to finish my entry? If not, will I have remembered to have saved anytime recently? I know I'm on the edge of my seat, but that might just be the coffee.
***
Jeez. My last entry was a Working on Xmas rant. Now it's mid-January. I must have done something that wasn't work over the last two weeks. Give me a minute.

I'm anxiously awaiting my W-2, so I can do my taxes. I'm anxious, because in the back of my brain is a Plan. THIS is the year I will get out debt. Well, no, it isn't. But THIS is the year when at least one big chunk of the debt goes away.

I was actually kind of dumb in July. I thought that at any moment I would get the promotion, and I started letting myself abuse the credit cards a little more than usual, because I was sick to death of living like a pauper, and dammit, soon I'd be able to pay it all back.

As we know, I didn't actually start making the moneys till Sept. Then came a few months of desperately trying to get the debt down to its former (admittedly still kind of scary) size. Then came Christmas. I actually paid cash for 90% of Xmas, which pleased me.

Now it's January. Xmas is over. I've got approximately $200 extra on each paycheck that doesn't HAVE to go towards anything in particular at all. Granted, $100 will be the gas and groceries that I used to either charge (BAD Jen!) or begged money from Rijid. But still.

As far as I can tell, I've got approximately $1600 left on the brain payments. Let us just take a moment to bask in that number. Eleven fucking years ago (damn, I'm old...) the number was right around $10,000. I know that's not even really a lot, compared to some people, but it was a lot for me. I struggled to make payments of $150/month, sometimes. I needed a few deferments over the years. But now, the end is finally in sight.

I know the smart thing to do is actually to throw mad moneys at the credit cards instead. Say what you will about SallieMae, but she's got the lowest interest rates in town.

Which brings us back to the tax return. I want it to be huge. I need it to be huge. I need about $2000, so I can laugh at my credit cards, and then start seriously smacking that SallieMae bitch into the ground. (I don't think my student loan provider is SallieMae, technically. But saying I'm going to "smack that Great Lakes Higher Education Corporation into the groud" is somehow less satisfying. I need the mental image of someone named SallieMae, who I can personify, then crush under my heel of financial independence. I'm not really sure what that says about me.)

Anyway. I want the tax return to be large. I want at least the big scary credit card to go practically away in one fell swoop, so I can concentrate all my energies on the student loan, but in the back of my mind, I'm terrified. It can't really be that simple. Instead, this will be the year that I end up owing money to the IRS, and I'll be stuck working at Fazuul forever.

"I make SO MUCH money now. I'm practically rich. Rich people don't get returns..."

This is my reasoning. I know it's flawed, and that I am in fact quite a long way from "rich." I can't help stressing about it, though. I want my W-2 to come NOW so I can see what exactly it will do for me, and then actually have some kind of factual basis to plan the rest of my finances for the year.


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