When I was looking to return to the work force a couple of years back, I applied at some competing hospitals. One hired me while the other put my resume in their system for "the future".

Last week, the second hospital called me to ask me to interview. Because I have some issues with my job, I decided to go see what they had to offer.

Today, they called to offer me a job. The pay rate and benefits would be the same, but they offer an ICU differential that would amount to about 5K more each year. Its also a good bit closer to home.

The downside is that it would require me to work every other weekend (friday and saturday night) plus 1 Sunday each month, meaning I would only be guaranteed 1 full weekend off. I'd also be losing seniority and some opportunity for advancement.

I'm torn. Do I jump at the money or do I stay where I am with the possibility of advancing the first part of next year? The devil I know versus the devil I don't.

Last week, I blogged about how I ended up with the enormous amount of consumer debt that I have. Basically, it's just because I have bad spending habits. This week, I want to focus on how I can turn those habits around and get rid of that number.

Obviously, I need to know where my money is going. The credit cards have been taken out of my wallet, so all that is left is my debit card. That's helping limit some of the spending. Plus, it makes it easy to track where I have spent my $ each week because I can download right in to Quicken. Great, but again, that's AFTER the fact.

I've decided that I need to know BEFORE I spend anything, whether or not I can afford it. That means budgeting and having that budget with me at all times. So I am going to have to either go to the Cash-Only envelope method or find some type of (preferably free) App that lets me do the same thing with my debit card.

My personal preference would be to have an App for a couple of reasons. I hate carrying cash. Many years ago I had my locker broken in to at school and my wallet stolen. At the time, losing that $30.00 was a huge deal. We never did recover my wallet or find out who did it. Another reason I have touched on already is that I like the convenience of having my spending download to my financial software automatically. I always have my smart phone with me, so being able to enter things right away is ideal.

The newest version of Quicken appears to have an associated App that would let me track my budget on the fly, so that's one possibility. Can anyone recommend any other software/apps?

$ 69,000 in debt.

That number staring back at me from the pages of Quicken made me sick to my stomach. But there it was in black and white. 69,000 pieces of shame, over indulgence and just poor planning.

How did I get to that point?

When we moved from the west coast to the east coast, I had ZERO in credit card debt plus a healthy savings account. But little by little, my bad habits whittled down that number. A potentially career ending injury caused that debt number to creep up. We moved to a new house. One that we truly could not afford, now that I am being honest about it. We hadn't sold the first one yet, so I took out a line of credit so we could just get rid of that house at a loss, just to be rid of a payment. Then my DH got sent back to the West Coast for work. 2 coasts. 2 households to keep up. Then he got laid off.

A small severance package and unemployment helped us hold on for a while. But sooner than I would have liked, the unemployment was no longer available. It meant me getting serious about getting healthy and going back to work. Or rather, getting healthy ENOUGH to go back to work.

And that's where I am today. Working 12 hour shifts at a job I can't stand, just because it pays most of the bills and we have medical insurance again.

I hope to make this blog a journal of how, with patience and hard work, I can slay that Debt Monster that haunts my dreams and steals my peace. I know it won't be easy. But I am hoping that through this community, I will find both the support and encouragement I need to make this journey.