Advice

So, I have a dilemma and I don't know what to do. I figured who better to ask than you lovely readers. Here goes...

Currently, I am working overtime twice a week (Tuesdays and Thursdays). I earn pretty good money for doing so. It's almost the equivalent of a third paycheck a month. Then two other days a week, I stay late for purposes related to the grant I won a few months ago. This means that 4 days out of the week, I work late and get home late. In fact, Mondays are my only early days, and typically those days I run errands for the house or for my job.

Here's how a typical work week goes these days:

Monday - Get home @ 4-4:30pm, write, try not to fall asleep, work or do house chores, make/eat dinner, watch TV/surf the net/hang out with A.P., go to bed

Tuesday - Get home @ 8pm, eat dinner, watch TV/surf the net/hang out with A.P., go to bed

Wednesday - Get home @ 5-5:30pm, write, try not to fall asleep, work, make/eat dinner, watch TV/surf the net/hang out with A.P., go to bed

Thursday - Get home @ 8pm, eat dinner, watch TV/surf the net/hang out with A.P., go to bed

Friday - Get home @ 5-5:30pm, write, try not to fall asleep, work, make/eat dinner, watch TV/surf the net/hang out with A.P., go to bed

The overtime I'm doing is in three month chunks. If you sign up to participate, you sign up for three months and it's up to you if you want to do it again the next time around. The deadline for whether or not I want to work another three months of overtime is approaching and I have to decide soon. I go back and forth every day.

Here's a quick pro/con list:

Pros - I make more money which allows me to meet a couple of big financial goals (paying off student loan debt and saving for a house). It looks good to my bosses that I'm willing to pitch in. And if I get better at managing my time I could potentially get all my work done for the week in 5 days (meaning no Sunday work, which is typically a whole Sunday).

Cons - I'm exhausted all the time. I don't get to see A.P. as much these days. I, in some ways, tripled my work load. I also feel that soon my grant project will take up even more time on Wednesdays and Fridays and I will be at work even later those days. My personal life is taking a major hit. I barely have time to clean, cook, or do anything I love: read, write, take photographs, etc. Finally, by the time the weekend rolls around, I become pretty useless. I bum around, take naps, and do nothing on Friday night/Saturday, and I work all day Sunday.

So it obviously looks like there are more cons to pros, but that first pro is a big one, and I'm torn about what to do. The ability to pay off my student loan debt way faster than I anticipated is a big draw. But this whole thing is affecting my appearance, too. You all should see the sad, sunken eyes I'm sporting these days! Plus A.P. keeps telling me I should just forget about it, and just pay off the loans eventually. And he's the first to get excited about reducing my debt, but he really sees the toll this is taking on me. I also feel that as long as I can handle these overtime stints, I should take them on. It will help us so much financially, and I still have that poor person mentality that I have to bust my ass for money. Argghhh!!!

What would you guys do? I'm so torn. Every Tuesday/Thursday morning, I wake up and want to kill myself at the thought of another 12-hour day, but then the work day ends and I kind of think I can do it. I really can't make up my mind.

Must...Stop...Shopping

This is the first time I've had money, like real money, in years. Why? I graduated undergrad early...I should be ahead of the game. But here's how my 20s break down (sidebar: With my 30th right around the corner, I'm doing a lot of reflection on my 20s):

1. Age 22-24 - My crappy first job in advertising where I made a pittance, and stayed too long, and so never made more than a pittance. Seriously. I'm embarrassed to type it, but at my first "real" job I made $27,500! Isn't that appalling? And when I got my raise the next year, it went up to $30,000 (base) + $300/mo bonus assuming I made no mistakes. And there were a few months where I made some mistakes, and so just didn't earn $300 of my monthly salary. Sucked BIG TIME. Aren't you embarrassed for my former boss? Aren't you embarrassed for me?
   
2. Age 24-25 - I gave up my small pittance for an even smaller one. I joined Americorps to gain some experience in my field, and do something good. After working in advertising for a couple of years, I needed something soul cleansing. I earned what they called a living wage, but which I often referred to as my "barely living wage." You get the idea.
   
3. Age 25-28 - Grad school. Need I say more? I nannied my way through, and I hate to admit this, but when I had to do an internship as part of my grad program, A.P. helped me out by paying our joint bills. This was, I think, the poorest I'd ever been, because even undergrad wasn't that bad. At the time I was living in Iowa, and it was way cheaper living.
   
4. Age 28-29 - Or last year, which was probably my first year making a nice, comfy salary. Of course I have some credit card debt (not nearly as much as I could have because I lived so frugally) and there were my ginormous student loan bills each month, but I was still earning decent money. But we were saving for our wedding, so I was back to broke. We planned our wedding in six months, and that's how long we saved. We each saved $1K a month, which meant I was back to living broke. Then, when the wedding was over, and I thought I could finally buy some new freaking clothes, I got laid off. So it was back to squirreling away cash, living frugally, and being all around broke. I had a nervous breakdown a few times around A.P. when I just screamed and cried about how sick I was of being poor. And as you remember, I was not exactly the happiest camper around.
   

Which brings us to the present...I'm 29. Despite the squirreling away of cash, I managed to pay off the bit I owed on our wedding (which was fairly nominal), as well as one of my student loans. That had a lot to do with me working that temp job over the summer along with my severance pay, which meant I still also felt like I was busting my ass for nothing. It paid off, though, when I got hired for my current job.

Now, I have money...and I can spend it, and save it, and not feel like a broke-ass motherlover. But now...I'm addicted to buying clothes. When I used to have steady income, I would shop, shop, shop. Always on sale, since that's what I could afford, but I love fashion and clothes, so that's what I liked to spend my money on. I was young, though, and didn't really have any financial goals. I saved some, spent more, and figured it would all work itself out one day.

Now, though, I have financial goals for myself...and for my marriage. I want a certain amount of money saved, and I want us to save to buy a car and a house and who knows what else! So the shopping is not really working out in my favor (though I am looking REAL good!). In the past month, I've spend hundreds of dollars on clothes...so many, many clothes. Seriously...I must...stop...shopping.

On the plus side, my insane spending has made me realize how happy I am with our money setup of yours, mine, ours. It may mean more accounts to track, but it also means not having a man bitch at me for my shopping...especially when it's money I earned.

Which leads me to my question for all of you: Does anybody else do yours, mine, ours accounting? If so, how do you keep track of finances? We are in the process of a complete financial overhaul (as A.P. is calling it), and are thinking about using Quicken, but aren't sure if it's ideal. Any suggestions would be welcome.

Have a great weekend! And don't shop too much!