January 21st 2019

Today I employed my classic coping mechanism of building a spreadsheet to help sort my life out. I need to at some point move out of my parent’s house. When I moved back here in… September?… I planned to just live without stress until the New Year, and then figure out what I’m going to do with my life in 2019.

Well, that time has come, and the first thing to do is, as always, to build a spreadsheet. I need to figure out what kind of rent I can afford, and where I want to live. I need to add up all of my expenditures, and also think about starting to save money for like life and shit.

I know that New Year, New Me is cliched to the point of inanity (dammit, I really thought that was going to be a real word — think ‘inaneness’), but I am kind of getting my act together this year so far. I’m usually really good at telling myself about all of the things I need to change, but less good at following through.

This year I’m following through. And I’m taking big steps. Steps that I’ve previously waited for someone else to take for me. Steps that I’m now taking myself. And it all starts with a spreadsheet.

I fucking love a spreadsheet, me.

Numbers can’t lie to you. Not really. Words can lie, and people can lie, and feelings can lie, but numbers can’t lie. Because ten take seven is always three no matter how you feel about it. I mean, you can make numbers lie if you ‘forget’ to include the whole picture (here, the ‘ten’ is figurative for my incomings, and the ‘seven’ is figurative for my outgoings) 

Ten take seven is actually only two if forget about that other one.

So, I tried to build the spreadsheet as honestly as I could, and made every bill and every debit the absolute worst case scenario, just so I know what bare minimums we’re working with.

And from there, I weigh up my options.

Until tomorrow, flip a coin.

Jacn