Thanksgiving is finished. Thank goodness/ and here come the holidays...
I hope that I can be sensible around the black friday frenzy. My plan is to record my spending, to go shopping with a friend (most of my crazy shopping is done by myself) and to stop early for some exercise.
This holiday has been a little different without my Dad. He'd been gone (except for his sweet nature) for almost 5 years with his encroaching dementia. I'm sure he's some place with lots of fishing, lots of good food, Where old guys can tell wild stories on the bank of a river where no one's back hurts...Not too bad a place to go when you're tired.

I've been reading financial improvement blogs for several years now and even though it seems a little like peeking into a stranger's window when they're most vulnerable, I just can't stop. Mostly because my relationship with money, managing money and just managing life is similar in almost every situation. Sometimes I'm fascinated by the trainwrecks that people can get themselves into and sometimes I'm impressed and intimidated by the skills that people use to manage their resources. When I read, I don't judge because I've made a lot of dumb financial moves. There've been improvements and hopefully there will be more to come. For me, my relationship with money is directly tied to my ability to live a healthy lifestyle. Those credit cards used to burn up in the old days when I felt kind of low. The areas that I want to track are listed.

spending:

exercise:

savings: