A year …. one passed and one starts..and I’m not excited

Last year sucked for me … it sucked bad.. I lost too much and the bad thing is this next year it looks like I might lose more. over the last 2 years I made some ill advised decision based on faulty information and it has come back to bit me….. big time.

Soooo… what to do. Well, I guess I will set some goals and do my best to accomplish them.

Goal #1 and the most Important: SAVE GRAD SCHOOL.

back story, when I graduated back in 2001 I started to defer my student loans because I wasn’t making much in the job I had and my payments were around $450 dollars a month. Fast forward to Oct 2010, when I found out I was going to lose my job I applied to a couple of grad programs. One I didn’t get accepted to because i had not taken my GRE and the Other accepted me provisionally based on my first semester grades and my GMAT score. But due to circumstances far out side of my control and part of that faulty information I got from someone else, I did not accept it, even though I should have and almost did anyway. Had I started that fall semester of last year I would have been able to a in school deferment of my loans. It would have been an MBA program which ins’t what I wanted but it would have helped me in my derailed plans to make more money.  A few months ago I got a letter form the student loan people telling me that my deferment had ended and that I needed to start paying again (payments now at $575ish). All my requests for deferment and forbearance have been denyed. Which means I currently defaulting on my student loans simply because I am unable to pay the payments and if I can’t make them or hold off defaulting I will not be able to get a loan for the first semester of the next fall or ever. I will lose grad school. Not to mention that if you default the federal government will garnish your wages for 15% of your income.

Anyway.. my goal is to figure out a way to hold off default till the fall. This the one that I think will be nearly impossible but I have to try.

Other Goals: 

1) study for and take my GRE (just in case I can pull off a miracle).

2) reduce my spending and build up my savings (I will write about how I am doing this)

3) finish fixing my mediocre credit rating.

4) print and hang up some of my photos.

5) redesign my blog and write here more….I really need to work on my writing skills.

6) Cook more and start a cooking blog to record my good and bads.

7) take more pictures… something I haven’t done as much as I’m used to.

8) put more diverse content on my photo blog fstopblues.net including producing video content tutorials.

9) Organize my stuff which I will have less of after I get rid of anything I haven’t used in over a year.

10) Move closer to work … so I can either  walk or ride my bike in. May not happen till after this semester ends and depends on goal #1 which might take me out of state.

11) Increase my 5K time to under 30 minutes and run the County Music Half Marathon on April 28

12) take a Yoga Class.

13) start the LifeHacker Workout Plan

I think this is a good start. I will try to keep up on the progress.