So been having a mini-slow-burn awakening of sorts over the last few weeks...

Have realised that 95% of my mental dialogue is repetitive, trivial, unproductive and uncreative.

I've realised this primarily by finding Eckhart Tolle on the web...

I've spent way too much time playing around with finances in my head... projecting myself forward into the future financially etc. In other words, making my daily life now subserviant to some far-off concept of Financial Independence/Retirement from Day-Job.

I've been letting the glorious moments of the present day past by without notice because I've been blinkered by the idea that having 100,000 in savings (for example) will make my life complete.

So have made a few small changes:

I was planning to be debt-free by next April. The only debt I have is a Bank Loan. The current balance is 4442 euro and the last monthly payment is due to be made in October 2010. I've decided to let the Bank Loan run it's course until Oct 2010.

I've taken 1000 out of my Cash-Savings and put it into my checking account as a buffer/overdraft to myself. I won't include this 1000 in any Net Worth-type calculations - it will be there as a buffer to save me from going overdrawn if anything unforeseen happens.

I'm not going to think of my car as an asset. Mainly because it depreciates every month and I don't like having assets that go down in value monthly. Also while it does give me a lot of freedom to travel, it costs me money as opposed to giving me money.

I've separated my Retirement Savings from my Bank Savings and Shares. Mainly because my Retirement Savings can't be accessed now/won't provide me an income for many years to come - so I don't want to think of them as assets until the day they start giving me an income. I'll keep contributing to them to avail of the tax-break.

Targets - I'm doing away with them. My life will not undergo a major transformation when my savings reach 20,000, 50,000 or 100,000 - and a lot of things unfinancial in nature will happen along the way - I could find a partner, have children, move abroad, change job etc etc These life-experience things will enrich my life far more than reaching a certain financial target.

I'm not saying I'm going to throw caution to the wind financially - I'm not. I'm just going to live my money life month to month. My current monthly budget will my primary financial thought process - as long as I am spending/saving this month's income according to my best interests, there really is nothing more I can do.

All the habitual playing around with numbers/worrying about numbers will not add an iota to life.

So hopefully... all going well.. I'll be debt-free this time next month !! It is kinda excited in an intellectual sense but I don't feel it emotionally yet...

I was debating with myself recently whether I should just let my loan run its course until October this year instead of paying it off next month but I decided to stick to my debt-free target of April 2010.

Incurred a 15 euro referral fee from my Bank - yesterday - not nice ! But my own fault. I usually have anywhere from 500 to 1000 euro in my bank account so I expected there to be enough there to meet my Brother's birthday present and a pre-emptive debt-free gift I bought myself - BUT my loan repayment went out at the same time so I was overdrawn for a day and the Bank charged my 15 euro for the privilege. My own fault - but I've become used to having that buffer in my Bank account so I've stopped worrying about not having enough money for purchases of less than 500. Live and Learn !

Also - my Bank which is a really good bank from a customer service point of view and which also pays 5% interest on money in my checking account is closing !! Bummer.

2 choices now. A bank that pays 2% interest on checking account but with bad customer service and queues OR a quieter bank with less queues and better customer service but no credit interest - I've decided to with the no interest bank as I value helpful friendly staff which this bank has.

The debt-free gift I bought myself is a week on holiday with my family. I didn't really want to go from a financial point of view as it will stretch my budget at the time when I am paying off the last of my debt. But I thought I will honour my family and spend quality time with them and also it will be a reward for becoming debt-free (which is a major thing for me).