Forgiving Myself (for my financial mistakes)

In My Plan To Get Back On The Right Financial Track, I have decided to
1. Admit My Mistakes
2. Forgive Myself
3. Learn From My Mistakes

Here is a list of the mistakes I listed previously and why I will forgive myself for each one.

*********

Mistake #1 - I Used My Credit Cards

Why I Will Forgive Myself for Mistake #1

- When I look at the things I used my credit card to purchase I realize that the first several charges were for clothes for me for my trip to Florida with my sisters to visit my parents.

I had gone with my sisters to visit my parents last year and had not bought myself new clothes - and this was a problem for me last year. Every day my sisters and mother all got dressed up in trendy stylish clothes and all I had were old boring clothes. I felt frumpy and dumpy. This year I was determined to have new clothes that I felt good in. (To make matters worse, I am the most overweight of my family. Having new clothes that I felt good in helped me feel better about my body.) Given these circumstances, I can understand why I bought the new clothes and I can forgive myself for it.

- The next large purchase that I paid with the credit card was $440 to pay for a vet bill for my cat (for a cardiac workup). When we first got the cat we found out that she had a serious heart problem. We were told to give her some medication twice a day, which we do, and to follow up with another exam and cardiac work up in 4 to 6 months. (The real mistake here was in not budgeting better for this.)

I love my cat and can understand why I did this and can forgive myself for it.

- The other things I purchased with the credit card were mostly back to school items and clothing for my kids. (The real mistake here was in not budgeting properly for this and also just not knowing how much we had in our account and resorting to using the credit card because of this lack of knowledge.)

I can understand why I did this and can forgive myself for it.

****

Mistake #2 - I Didn't Pay Attention To Our Finances

Why I Will Forgive Myself For Mistake #2

Over the past few months I have opened two shops on Etsy and also opened a store on Ebay and also landed a wholesale account at a brick & mortar gift shop.

I also signed up (and paid $145) to have a booth at our local Harvest Festival in October.

These things have taken up a lot of my time. I used to focus 100% on getting out of debt. Now these things fight for my attention.

I definitely have not given our finances the attention that they need lately, and I will do better, but I can understand how it happened and can forgive myself for it.

***

Mistake #3 - I Did Not Pay As Much To Our Debts As I Had Planned

Why I Will Forgive Myself For Mistake #3

I think this one goes hand in hand with the first two. We didn't pay as much to our debts both because some of the money had to be used to pay off new credit card charges and also a general lack of attention to finances meant that we weren't sticking stickly to the budget. At the end of the month we just didn't have as much money available to pay to the debt as we should have.

I can understand how this happened and can forgive myself for it.

****

Mistake #4 - I Did Not Save As Much As I Had Planned

Why I Will Forgive Myself For Mistake #4

The obvious reason that we didn't save as much as we had planned is because we were overspending. When you spend more than you have budgeted, the money needs to come from somewhere, and savings is one place the money came from. Even having money in savings is new for us. We are not used to having several thousands of dollars sitting in an account.

I can understand how having this "extra money" can be tempting and I can forgive myself for dipping into it.

****

The real test will be to learn from these mistakes!