By age 30 I filed for bankruptcy and at 31 years old I was a single mother of two young daughters, receiving no child support and the bills were piling up.  I was still making great money yet there was nothing left at the end of each month and I found myself living paycheck to paycheck.  It was the pray and pay period of my financial life.  Pray the bills didn’t come in too high this month and then pay what I could.

Over the course of 8 years I went from feeling at the top of the world financially to where my finances controlled my emotions and aspects of my life that aren’t even related.  I became plagued with constant feelings of fear, doom, desperation and stupidity.  I was cut off spiritually.  I continually questioned myself about how I could fall so far from financial grace so quickly.  I was ashamed of my finances and myself.  Although this was my reality I considered myself an intelligent, successful woman and I had to uphold this image to the outside world so I didn’t want to let anyone know I was having troubles.  This became a lot of pressure for me.  I hit my bottom and it was time for a change. 

Hence, I took the first step in facing my situation by determining that I would take action in proactively taking back control of my finances.  It had been suggested to me (probably multiple times) to develop a budget for myself.  The thought of working through a long workbook or complex spreadsheets sounded cumbersome and overwhelming.  I wanted to change my current situation and I was determined to create a process that was easy for me to follow and implement.  I knew this would give me the best chance of actually executing a plan that would work.