Yay, Tickers!

So I have my Tickers up. If I'm very committed, and work very hard, I should be able to take care of my first 4 debts by July of 2012. Which is a very, very, very long way away. Pleh!

The "total debts" by the way, don't include a private student loan still paid by my parents (yes, I know) of about $11,000. Otherwise I think that's everything. And isn't it enough? I mean $76k buys a forking nice car! All it bought me was about half a degree and a whole lot of travel and beer.

Call me crazy, but I think from now on I'd rather pay cash for travel and beer.

So enough depressing debt stuff for a minute. Hiding under the Debt Tickers Of Doom (+1) is a much smaller pile of savings tickers. After all, why bother paying stuff off if you don't get to do cool stuff someday. For some reason I feel the need to explain these. Like people won't understand what I'm saving for. Or maybe I think I'll forget what I'm saving for.

First is a baby e-fund, ala Dave Ramsey. He seems to show up a lot around me. Which is interesting, since he's a hard core god guy, and I'm hard core atheist, but I use what works, and he seems to work. You (or I) might notice that the little baby emergency fund is totally full (for now, baring emergencies) at $1000. Thank you IRS/ Tax refund. If I don't get a job soon this number will go down fast, but it's there now and it makes me feel so... I don't know... Not safe so much as less twitchy.

Next up is a small escape fund. $1800 is probably more than I should spend while paying off piles of debt, but if I don't have money sitting around just waiting for a trip I know at some point I'll crack. It's that whole hope for something better deal, I think. Also, it makes it easier to breathe. Inhalers are expensive, so are panic attacks and the ER trips that go with them. So some feeling of freedom is important, and the escape fund does that for me. It's enough to pay for airfare and all my expenses over a 2 or 3 week vacation- provided I go to another country. Actually I could probably do a 3 week trip on that in the states, if I didn't do crazy shopping at the same time.

Next saving goal is easy to explain- it's the extension of my e-fund from $1k to three months (estimated) expenses. I put this after my escape fund because while it's nice knowing I can survive for 3 months without a job

1. I don't intend to spend 3 months without any kind of job anytime soon, and
   
2. it doesn't give me quite the same warm fuzzy feeling knowing I can run away for most of a month does.

That might only make sense to those similarly afflicted. Wanderlust is a powerful thing. The longer and harder I force it down the more miserable it makes me. Some weaknesses you just have to give in to, and some people just aren't meant to stay in one place.

On to the wild Dreamy stuff. Ever since I was about 12 I've wanted to thru-hike the AT. For anyone not familiar with it, it's a 2250 mile (give or take) trail from Georgia to Maine up the east coast of the US. I think it would be fun, and amazing, and it would allow me to think, and hike, and who knows what else. I just want to do it. The $10010 saving goal includes $600 payments every month for 6 months. I figure that'll either cover insurance or debt payments, but either way, it's important to have hanging around. For the trip itself (food, transport, beer, equipment, extras, hotels in town, misc other stuff) I figured $5500. That's not a huge amount, and lots of people will say it's too low, but it's a perfectly reasonable $2 a mile, plus $1000 for equipment. Oh, and I added in 10% overall for oopses and runovers and whatnot.

Finally, my dream trip. I'm sure I'll talk about this more, eventually. For now, since this is getting long, let's just say it's a multi-year, every country in the world kinda trip. It's also a really high goal. If I can work out a way to do this trip for less, I will. If I can find a way to go sooner than "whenever all my debt is paid off and when I have enough money", AKA in about 15 years, I will.

Ok, so those are my goals. And my debts. It's kinda horrifying to put it all out there and look at the debt all in one place. When it's on separate statements and web pages and not all added up it seems, I dunno, less threatening somehow. Looking at it now, tho... Holy Carp I owe a lot! My net worth is a starter house shaped hole in my world.

Sorry, freaking out a bit. I don't think I've actually looked at it all in one place before. Anyone else have this reaction to looking at their total, or is this just me?