I've been reading personal finance blogs lately; just my latest min-obsession. However, it's not making me feel very good about myself. SavingDiva at Saving For A Home Of Her Own has a post from last May about feeling like she's behind in life, which is exactly how I feel when I think about it too much.

I'll be 27 in a couple of weeks. My net worth is ... errr .... about negative fifty thousand, if you include my student loans. If you don't, it's still about negative seven thousand. I have seventeen dollars in my savings account. I'm single. I have a two-year college degree, but that's about useless, and I have another two years before I'll have a bachelor's degree. I don't own a house. I don't even own a car ("my" car is my dad's), other than my Mustang which doesn't run now anyway.

From that standpoint, it's pretty depressing. At work, I'm surrounded by people who are married, have kids, and own houses. A few people have degrees. It makes me feel like I've accomplished nothing. And I have; I've racked up quite a few college credits to go with that chunk of student loan debt, and I'll have a degree soon. I have job experience. I've cut my credit card debt down to under $9K from a starting point of $23K (and about $5K of that debt is new from stupid Christmas shopping and some other things).

From a less statistical point, I'm almost happier than I've ever been. If I didn't miss the town I used to live in, and my friends there, I wouldn't say almost. Most of the time, I'm fairly content with my life, and content to keep pushing toward the goals that I have. But sometimes .... sometimes I feel like it's pointless, like I'm so far behind I'll never catch up, like I'll never accomplish what I want.

Which is sad, because what I want is pretty basic, after all: I just want to be able to pay my bills and have enough money leftover to have some fun (like, say, go to a movie without beating myself up). Is that too much to ask? Right now it seems like it, considering the fact that right about the time I finish paying off my credit cards, I'll have to start in on those student loan debts, which is probably going to be about a $600/month payment by the time I finish another year and a half of school.

But I guess I'll always owe someone, and an education is a good thing to go into debt over. I'll deal with it when it comes. For now, I'm going to set my sights on getting my credit cards paid off as soon as possible. Then I can hopefully have some time to set up an emergency fund before hitting those student loans.

For now .... for now I'm going to go do something to distract myself, because despite rationalizing and planning, I still feel very depressed. Oh, and the jealousy? That's because I have no financial security, and I know it, and so I'm scared and jealous of people who are stable.

Distractions now!