I got my first call for the Polynesian dance job. It's a training show a couple of hours away. 50 bucks and I can carpool so little to no gas. Considering I thought it was 10 an hour and shows last less than 2, I was pleasantly surprised.

I'm a little nervous since I only know one dance and my technique is not at all refined, but I'm guessing the untrained eye really only cares that your hips are moving and doesn't really notice whether it's the exact shape

I've been trying to decide whether to snowball the money from this job or use it to start building a slush fund. I have a linked savings account that I put 25 a month into, and I could use that as the slush fund and (since I've stopped touching it) put the job money into debt repayment. Any thoughts?

Let me preface this by saying I'm fully prepared for any and all flak that may come my way. And part of the reason for this post is that a part of me is hoping someone's logic will be enough to change my mind...

I've never had a vacation, like a legitimate go somewhere (or stay home) week-long break that belongs solely to me. The past few years, I've had the unfortunate luck of regularly being sick and so all of my PTO went to sick days.

This year, a good friend of mine who lives far away (1.5 flight; 8 hr drive) wants to do a girls' trip. The idea sounds phenomenal - 4 women relaxing and living it up somewhere warm with ice cold drinks

Since the trip is in August and I have the (mostly) fortunate luck of living with a family rent-free, I could easily pay for this trip by saving my surplus for the month of April. The trade-off is that it'll push my payback plan back a month.

I'm torn...on the one hand, I've loved seeing the balances go down or disappear completely, so I think I'd miss it going back to the minimums for a month. On the other...VACATION!!

What to do, what to do...

I think it's time I mentioned the biggest factor potentially holding me back in my debt journey - my family.

My mom grew up in a very traditional Filipino family where everyone does things for the family. It's simply expected that when someone is in trouble or needs help, you help them.

While I've gotten better with this lately, this past weekend was a little bit of a setback. My mom's terrible with money. Because of that, I've been vague about increases and finances, so she's not aware of what I make or what little I have in savings. You can bet if she knew, she'd come calling more often (she is, however, aware of my living situation).

She's been spending what little she has on a lawyer for her sister (told you, they all pay help each other...even at their own expense), and asked me for a loan. While I don't mind giving it, I usually have to put myself in the mindset that that is money I'll just never see again if I agree to give it to her. If it comes back, I just consider it a nice snowflake, but more often than not, it doesn't. Unfortunately, that was money I had intended to put my car well under the 9 grand mark. Now, I have to settle for just getting it to 8 grand and (LOTS OF) change.

Has anyone else experienced this sort of family culture? How do you escape it without losing those you hold dear?

Hi Everyone!

I'm new to blogging so be gentle I recently made the decision to buckle down on my finances. After creating the dreaded 'B' word and working up some scenarios, I've given myself the aggressive, but attainable, goal of being debt-free by 30 (gives me almost 3 years). I'm pretty open, so I will be posting full numbers and would appreciate any feedback/help I can get. My blogging goal is 3 posts/week, so feel free to hold me accountable on that too.

I've been working on this aggressively since January (I started in November, but we all know how the holidays can derail things: finances, weight, work, etc...) and am happy to say that I've paid off my credit card (1500) and gotten my car under 10000 (originally 13000). And since no story's complete without failures, I will say they upon discovering my credit score was higher than it's ever been (720ish), I foolishly opened 2 more credit cards and took out a personal loan (more on this later). I've been good with the cards so far and they have low limits.

Next post, I'll lay out all my numbers and my broken down goals for this year.