Day Zero Project. The premise, as I understand it, is simple. Pick 101 things you would like to do and then give yourself 1001 days to do them. Some of the things on my list have been there for a long time. 1001 days is just short of 3 years. I figure any of these things that I fail to get done I can give up on at that point (well, other than things like paying off credit cards).

Get new shoes.
Get a passport.
set up home recording studio
learn PHP/MySQL
Go to Stillwater for vacation
Take the cat in for a vet appointment.
Buy an expressionengine upgrade
get all my domains renewed
advertise my letters site
pay off Visa
pay off Mastercard
pay off Discover
Save $1000
Pay off home equity
resurface basement
refinish bathroom
get new kitchen counters
repair/replace dishwasher
get new glasses
go to a concert
pay off student loan
credit cards
Repair or buy a camera
Make or buy a monkey puppet
Put together Osculation chapbook
Put together new poetry chapbook

When I get paid and I sit down to start paying bills I am always somewhat excited and stupidly optimistic. By the time I’ve scheduled the last payment I often wonder how I’ll make it to the next check. Perhaps that’s overly dramatic, since I always seem to manage, but since a goodly potion of my bills land toward the beginning of the month I always wipe out that whole check plus more.

So I’ve been wanting to get a bit more serious about budgeting. I want a better grasp on what’s coming in and what’s going out. To this end I am going to make a list of projects I would like to accomplish. These are things that will cost me some cash or are finance related. I am then going to put them in a prioritized order and try to start attacking these. I’m not sure if this will help, or just make me feel like I am treading water. We’ll see.

I’m also wanting to try the 101 goals in 1001 days thing.