113 - Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you

I spent the day grocery shopping and organizing. My life seems to be all about organizing lately... organizing finances, organizing the pantry, organizing stuff in my closet, organizing the future. I feel like I'm trying to get somewhere but I have no idea where I'm trying to go, and all these little steps feel like me trying clearing the air, figuring out what's important to me.

Right now, de-cluttering is important. Knowing what I have, knowing what I want.

I have all these closets stuffed full of stuff that I don't use but continue to hang onto. I still have stuff in my garage that I haven't unpacked... I rifled through it when I moved in (five years ago) and determined that it could stay in the box... I've kept it instead of tossing it out or passing it along to someone else to use. I could just give the stuff away, and I have given a fair amount of it away, but because I want to pay my debts down, I want to try selling some of it on ebay instead. I'm just worried that it will be a lot of effort for very little payoff.

I spent a couple of hours on Saturday, gathering up dress patterns I'd bought on ebay -- I don't even wear dresses! But these were primarily Rennassaince Festival type costumes I thought I could make. Okay... in all honesty it started out that way, then I thought 'I can make some tops too... and oh that retro dress is kind of cute, maybe I'd wear that... and wow, I kinda like that apron, that would be something easy to start out with... to learn to sew...' I'm so stupid. I sorted them by style and size, and divided them into sets, because I think sets will sell better; it's a better deal for people. Now I just have to take pictures of the contents and put up my listings (which may take a while since I am a born procrastinator). If that goes well I'll start selling other stuff. Like all the fabric I bought, with the intention of sewing said patterns.

Financially I feel like I'm lost. My whole plan has changed. It used to be 'pay off all of my debts.' Period. When I paid one off, I would snowball that money toward the next one. Now I only intend to work on paying down the debts with low interest rates that expire, and what I owe mom and dad (I hate that I owe them, it makes me feel like a failure). After that, I'm going to pay a set amount to the others each month, but put the rest of the money aside. So when I start doing that (hopefully early next year), I need to know what to do with that money, and right now I don't have a plan.

I'm thinking of putting some of it into savings as a slush fund. That way if an emergency happens I can use that money instead of a credit card, if my car poops out (hopefully not any time soon) I can afford to put down a nice downpayment, if I see my dream house I can jump on it... Or I could put it into a Roth IRA. Then I'm saving for my future, but since I've already paid taxes on the money, I can pull my contributions out with no penalty if I need to. I really like the idea of working hard now so that maybe I can retire early... I just don't know if it's feasible. Things change all the time.

I got something in the mail from ING, it's about a program called Share Builder. It looks a little like a 401k account in that you contribute a certain amount each month, and the money goes into the stockmarket (stocks you choose). I don't really understand the market, but if I contribute a smallish amount of money each month, an amount that I wouldn't miss much if I lost it, maybe it would be worth it. Who knows... sometimes it pays off, as long as you're not counting on it.

All is for naught anyway... I watched a documentary on the whole Dec 21, 2012 thing and well... I don't want to panic anyone... but we're all gonna die!!!!

I dunno... sitting there watching it I thought to myself... if it's going to happen, it's going to happen, and there's no sense in sitting here worrying myself to death about dying on an arbitrary day chosen by an extinct race of people several thousands of years ago. Disaster can happen every day. Personally I think the Mayans just got tired of projecting into the future, so they stopped the calendar in 2012. Maybe the calendar guy died on the 21st.

Some of the theories were interesting, but what killed me was that some of these guys (one of whom thinks we're descended from Martians...) were railing about how no one is taking preventitive measures. Let me pose this question... if there's a 30 foot tidal wave sweeping the world, and earthquakes and volcanoes are ripping the continents apart... what is anyone supposed to do to mitigate that? Build a 50 ft high damn? Launch ourselves into the air in hot air balloons?

I think something's wrong with me... I bought some eggnog and I was all excited about it, but now that I'm drinking it... I don't want it. It's too sweet. I ended up throwing it out.

Oh. And as I was clearing out the pantry I realized that I do NOT need to buy anymore hot chocolate. I have three boxes and about another boxes worth of orphan packets. Not to mention that I can make my own with the baker's cocoa I have in my spice cabinet. I also have four bags of dry cat food, and three boxes of canned cat food. Aaaaaand about 10 cans of whole or diced tomatoes. As well as enough rice to feed a small country. Sometimes it's good to clean out the pantry... Now I can just buy lettuce and I'm good!