I only cheated a little bit

I have not been faithful to my budget. I've been cheating.

Fortunately, I have not been using any credit cards. All my financial indiscretions have been committed with cash.   I haven't busted the budget completely, or burned through any funds needed for bills, but I've slipped up.

This month, I have had some extra money in the bank. And I've been eating out at restaurants and spending some money that I know I should be devoting to my debt payoff plan. The wasted funds don't add up to big cash, but it's allowing some old, bad habits to creep back in to my life.

I know a lot of the reason is that I'm bored. I'm just tired of not having a life in order to stick to the budget. I am seeing the progress of the last year of work. I no longer have to spend every penny I bring home just to make minimum payments and afford food. Now, if I only paid the minimums on all my accounts I would actually have some money left over to play with. And it's tempting to play.

Maybe it's because the weather has been getting better. I've felt cooped up for a long, long winter.

Perhaps in this next phase, in order to get all the way through the debt payoff plan, I need to find a no-cost hobby that gets me out and about a bit more. Or, maybe, if I'm going to stay cooped up, I could spend more of the time I spend in front of a computer writing more rather than staring at numbers in a spreadsheet. I know the number, though they are changing a bit more rapidly each month, don't change when I just stare at them.

Yes, I've cheated, and I'm not proud of that. But I haven't pulled out the plastic, in spite of the urge to splurge.  If I keep it up, in one year I should be less than 2 years from being out of debt.

Sometimes that seems so close. But far too often it all feels so far away.