Fingers crossed

I made some noise a few months ago about this being the year that I get my finances under control. I haven't talked about it here b/c, well, this stuff is pretty personal and it's not like I really have a clue what I'm doing. But I think I am making progress. What I've done so far:

1. Get a job with a good salary. (If I were a better person w/ money this would not be a prerequisite but, well, it pretty much was for me.)
2. Feel sense of enormous relief, sketch out budget with fixed costs (rent, phone and internet, student loans, savings, credit card debt, paying back other debts.)
3. Set up automatic withdrawals so that all the fixed costs disappear from your checking account on the 1st of the month.
4. Make your extremely helpful supportive sister keep a spending diary w/ you for a month; write down every thing you spend and send it to her. Almost immediately stop buying frivolous things b/c if you'd be embarrassed to write it down, you don't need it.
5. When that month is over, keep a tracker (a google docs spreadsheet is perfect b/c you can update it from work and home) of where you are with your debts overall (1 sheet) and where you are w/ your spending every month (another sheet for every month.) Update it a couple times a week, either by keeping receipts or logging into your bank account.
6. Stop buying books (except the occasional 2nd hand paperback; otherwise use the library.) Stop buying clothes (except some sweaters at a 2nd hand store b/c seriously who moves to the Bay Area w/ 2 sweaters?) Stop eating out (pretty much.) Never buy lunch (what's the point in being a serious cook if you can't plan for leftovers?) Forgo a yoga studio membership and instead go to classes at the donation studio that has really fucking annoying breathing exercises.
7. Keep a few treats/necessary splurges in rotation - 1 cup of coffee at the Algerian cafe below work per week, nice wool to knit with (n.b. since it takes like 6 months to complete a simple scarf, this is not a frequent expense), materials for jam and pickling experiments.
8. After a few months, realize that you have actually acquired enough maturity to decide whether it makes sense to keep living alone in a big space in a great neighbourhood at the upper end of what you can afford to spend on housing, if you could live with a roommate in a big space in a great neighbourhood for significantly less. Do the math and light up at how much you could save instead of how much more you could be spending (!).

I wouldn't say that I'll never make a foolish purchase again, and that I don't sometimes pout about having to be an ant now instead of a grasshopper - but it is amazing how even just a few months of careful attention to my spending has changed my habits, desires, priorities. The tracker keeps me honest; I can't persuade myself that buying something I don't have cash on hand for is reasonable when I know exactly how much cash I do have on hand, and how long it needs to last. On the other hand, when I do decide to buy something that isn't strictly necessary (a beer, a chair, whatever), I get a lot more satisfaction out of it now than when all such purchases were impulsive, ill-considered, guilt-imbued.