Budget is set.

I was up late last night, getting my budget set for the year.

The down side is, I won't have much spending money this year. Point of fact, after January, my only spending money is going to come from either tax returns (and he's hoping I don't have to pay in this year!), or bonuses from work.

This is going to be a bit stressful, but except for a few notions, I don't really need any materials for my craft projects right now. The main thing I need to do with my craft projects is get them done! This is one of the main things that annoys me about my crafting habits - I plan all these projects, and get some of the materials (if not all of them) then flag about the execution. On the plus side, I've already gotten one major one started, so I should have some progress to report at the beginning of next month as far as that goes.

I do need to tweak my budget just a little bit to account for something, but that shouldn't put too much of a snag into things, really. If I am able to play my cards right, I should have at least two of my credit cards paid off (and at least one canceled) by the end of the year.

I say at least one canceled because out of all the credit cards I have (6 *^_^*), only one of them has a yearly fee attached to it, which means over the course of a year, even if I pay it off completely, it continues to have something charged to it. Alas, this is also the one that has the lowest interest rate, so I'm not going to be paying it off very quickly. But, this is the one that I hope to cancel first. Secondarily, canceling a card does make your credit rating go down, afaik. Therefore it is within my best interest to have the credit card company itself decide to close my account. Meanwhile, if I continue to pay my bill on time, I should, in theory, see the interest rate go down. I'm not going to count on that, though.

My main concern is spending money, of course. I live with my parents, since my debt has made me unable to afford my own place right now (not to mention that rents are really high in the city I live in - I mean, really, $700 a month for an efficiency?? Before utilities?? O_o). Because of this, I don't have to worry about very many bumps in the road as far as utilities and suchlike. I don't have my own car (yet) so don't have to worry about gas or insurance on a regular basis, so there's no worry there.

The main downside is that I won't be able to go see the new Sherlock Holmes, or The Princess and the Frog, like I had wanted to. (Considering there aren't very many movies I want to see when they're in theaters, the fact that there are actually three that I want to see right now (also, Avatar) is saying something!)

Ah well. Life is tough all over, right?