Okay, I know. I totally suck. I haven't updated you except for the fast, tiny update at the start of the month. I am SO sorry! June was been quite a whirlwind month and I don't think I even had three seconds to do anything! (Including, by the way, shopping!)Part of this craziness was induced by a short notice 10 day trip to Israel. Yes. It was incredible but I was also concerned about breaking my no pants skirt dance. For those of you just joining us, after reading a very inspiring article in May, I decided to put my choices spending (optional stuff, clothing, etc) on hold for three months and see how I do. You can read about that here - No Pants Dance.I promised to blog about it and I horribly failed to do that this first month. But fortunately, that is about the biggest failure from the first month (and I blame it on insane traveling schedules and falling head over heels in love with my sweet boyfriend). My boyfriend and I were playing travel tag. I went on a trip then he went on a trip (we didn't see each other for two weeks solid!) then we were home together for a week and I left for a 10 day trip to Israel. So we were spending every second we had staring into each others eyes and telling each other how awesome and cute we are. It was a lot of work! :)When I came home, I had about a week to get myself together again and then it was his birthday and my sorority's international convention held right here in Denver... a convention that I had been on the committee for and been planning for TWO YEARS! Okay, so seriously, this is my first week back into any sort of normal groove. 
But let's look at how I did on the No Pants Skirt Dance in June:
I spent VERY wisely when I was abroad. I did not go insane and buy the entire state of Israel. I limited myself to one treat (a dress from the shuk) and then got sweet boyfriend a kippah (skullcap), some tea that he enjoys, a cute magnet for our refrigerator collection, and a bunch of spices to play with when we cook. I didn't eat out much but I did get a couple of the fabulous ice cafes that are pretty unique to Israel (it's like a frappachino... with real coffee... you can't get coffee with ice cubes in it in Israel... well you can but it takes some explaining).
I had already purchased Sweet Boyfriend's birthday presents prior to the beginning of the No Pants Skirts Dance. That was very good. I did have to get a bit of packaging for them but it wasn't too bad.
There were some expenses involved in the traveling and the convention that I had not anticipated. It amounted to a couple hundred bucks... that disappointed me but at least I had it because I wasn't spending that money on other non-essentials.
The best part of June was when I came home and Sweet Boyfriend decided that he was going to take the challenge too. Since this is for OUR future, he said, we should do this together. So he is on a No Pants Dance too. He decided he liked polo shirts for the summer but only had two. He had a credit from purchases on ebay plus we are selling some older shirts and thus, getting more useful items while not spending any money! Brilliant!
Oh... one other thing did happen in the middle of this crazy month... I found out that my identity was stolen. Yes. Some jerk decided not live his own life on his own merits and hard work and would rather live on mine. Fortunately, I caught it pretty early. They used one of my existing credit cards and opened another... and tried but failed to open yet another. I went through a fairly intensive process of filing police reports, filing reports with the FTC, sending in fraud alerts, etc. And that was an additional unexpected expense... purchasing protection and monitoring for my credit and identity.
Sweet Boyfriend has been incredibly encouraging and helpful in this whole situation. He is a financial wiz so he is able to give me a realistic view of the future of our finances and frankly... if I keep working hard, it looks pretty good!$$ update:
I am currently putting a third of my income towards paying down my debt. At this rate, I will be clear of all debt, except my car payment and my student loan payments, within 8-9 months. If I can hold out, the No Pants Skirt Dance may last that long. This is all still while contributing to my 401k and putting away savings.
Once those debts are paid off, I will be putting that 33(ish) percent of my income towards the car and savings. I am hoping to build a strong financial base for myself and my future family. I know what it feels like to just scrape by and it is not a good feeling. I don't want my kids to have to deal with that.
For once in my life, I am actually jazzed about finances. It does help to have a smarty pants Sweet Boyfriend around...