I drafted my 2012 goals--you'll see them in the sidebar.

The debt monster really ran amok in 2011 as I continued to run into emergency situations that were just not in the budget for a person surviving on unemployment, but now that I am employed, the extinction of the debt is in sight. As soon as I received my first full paycheck, I sat down and spent a day and budgeted and planned.

If I were paying off the debt based on my salary alone, it would take me 3-4 years, just as it did at the start of my career, when I got into debt the first time. I do expect to receive money from my mother's estate next year, however, and that will allow me to short-cut the process and pay off the debt all at once, as well as use the balance to establish the car and roof replacement and emergency funds I should have been building all this time had circumstances allowed.

Once the debt is paid off, I will increase my retirement contributions and think about other savings goals.

It is so nice to be able to plan again against a background of relative certainty compared to the planning with life-in-limbo that I've done since 2009.