I use overdraft on my bank account each and every month.

I'm not just living paycheque to paycheque; I'm living paycheque to overdraft to credit card to line of credit to....

Debt-to-income ratio. This should be my North Star. This is the percentage of your income that you use to service your debt, including credit cards, loans, and the like (excluding mortgage or rent). They say you're doing okay if you keep it under 20%....I'm currently sitting at 35%. To clarify: more than a third of my income goes toward my debt. The shocker? I'm not paying down my debt nearly fast enough. At the current rate, it will literally take me years to pay it off. Realistically? I should double my debt payments. The problem? It would be impossible to pay 70% of my income toward my debt. Who does that?

It's not that I'm spending too much money; it's that I have too much debt and not enough income.

I'm paying off my education in addition to the cost...

I contacted a driving school and booked a car for my August 25th road test.

I really need to practice. I'm going to do a 200+ km highway drive this weekend...it will be a good start.

I'll have 6 in-car lessons beforehand. I should push myself to drive as much as I can even outside of these lessons. The lessons will help correct bad habits or things I may have forgotten, but I need to be comfortable.

Hectic month, this. Last night I handed in a term paper...5 days early...because of other things getting in the way. We're co-hosting a BBQ out of town this weekend, and we're bringing my 13-year-old nephew back for a few days' visit. I have a final exam this Thursday, and another a week from Saturday. I go away to Cuba on the 9th for a week, my first "real" trip....(first passport, yay). I come back for a few more driving lessons, and then the big test.

On top of all that, work's printer deadline is at the end of the...

I've been listening to several books and audiobooks lately--the "self-help" kind.

Before you judge me, it's not what you think.

As an editor working in the trade publishing industry, I know what the self-help genre produces. Yes, most of it is crap. It's filled with "authors" shopping their platitudes. Many of them regurgitate what's been published over the past century or two. Many of them probably do more harm than good. Others are downright rubbish.

There are, however, some gems in there. Some of the best ones were first published in the late 19th to the early 20th centuries, some of them in the last half of the 20th. A slew of them contain the essential material that most of the current "authors" bastardize when they spout their "solutions" to our problems.

I've managed to separate the wheat from the chaff...somewhat.

The authors I've enjoyed so far include Napoleon...

Technically, it's not a pay cut, but the end effect is the same. My rent went up another $300 a year. It has done this annually for the past few years.

I started at my current job nearly 5 years ago, and since then, I've received no raises (and none will be given). Quick math tells me that since then my annual rent expense has increased by approximately $1,500, and so it's like I've had at least $1,500 cut from my annual salary.

This, my friends, is called inflationary erosion. I understand that the cost of living rises at approximately the rate of inflation, so I don't get angry at the holding company when it posts increases to my rent. Hell, they don't post the maximum legal increases. They try to be a bit competitive with their rates.

Some companies offer raises based on this phenomenon. Inflation can be a bitch when it hits your pocket, and so some people get what they call a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA). Companies that do this will...

I just received a new "report card" from my trainer. It measures the period between the beginning of May to today, so about 2.5 months.

I dropped 5lbs., net.

My fat mass went from 30lbs. down to 24.6lbs., for a loss of 5.4lbs.
My lean muscle mass (fat-free mass) went from 147.2lbs. to 147.6lbs., for a gain of 0.4lbs.
My fat percentage went from 16.9% down to 14.3%, for a loss of 2.6%.

It all looks good, perhaps, but it wasn't ideal. My trainer had hoped my lean muscle mass gain would be about 1.0lb. All that means is he's going to work me harder now.

But I'm happy with this result. Back in March, I was just over 20% body fat, and so my total body fat loss is now around 6%. That's about a 30% drop in fat percentage. Needless to say, I can notice the difference, especially around my middle. My legs are more solid as well.

For the remaining 5 weeks, we'll be moving on to mass...