I was 18 when my mother removed herself as the co-signer on my checking account. It was five days before I left for college and she handed me my checkbook like she was handing me a set of keys to a secret treasure chest.

"Nora, she said, "you are now in control of your financial destiny. Use this wisely."

And yes, she paused that dramatically because that is how she likes to speak during important life moments.

As you can expect, I took those keys to my financial destiny and drove it straight into a pool of parental disappointment. Which is to say, I spent all of my money in the first semester of college.

Like, all of it. Every penny I had saved babysitting on Saturday nights. Every dollar I had earned plucking kids from the deep end of the public pool because their mothers were too busy tanning to make sure their little ones weren't drowning. Every nickel I earned as a hostess at the department-store restaurant where I flirted with the servers in hopes they would bring me buttery pop-overs to snack on behind the hostess stand in between seating little old ladies at giant booths so they could enjoy hot bowls of soup on a steamy July day.

So, the money was gone and my parents were beyond pissed. They were mystified, disgusted and dismayed. Could their straight-A daughter actually be an idiot?

Well, yes, she could indeed. I'll skip over the part about how I wasn't emotionally prepared for college and treated my depression with some therapeutic online shopping and get to the point: ever since that fateful semester TEN YEARS AGO, I've felt bad about my relationship with money.  I'm no longer spending 100% of my income on Steve Madden shoes (I can't believe I'm confessing that but we're friends, right?) but it hasn't been an easy road, either. Sure, there were those years in NYC, where I couldn't save a penny if my life depended on it, but also, I just REALLY LIKE SPENDING MY MONEY. And not on big-ticket things, either. I don't have expensive handbags or a fancy car. I haven't been taking lavish vacations or gotten plastic surgery. I've just been eating my money. Literally.

Recently, my bank pointed out that they are tracking my debit card purchases and I could view my spending habits by pie chart. If you want to know how much is too much of your income to spend on food, ask me and I will tell you privately. Like so many times before, I found myself shaking my head at myself and saying, "I gotta get my life together." Out loud. Because that is the only way to let myself know that I am serious.

So where am I going with this? A new self-improvement goal! With new action items for me to obsess over! Like:

(1) Talking  to my financially-savvy friend to get an idea of how she manages a budget. Turns out, she doesn't keep a set budget, she just "tries not to act like an idiot." Noted.

(2) Borrowing a Suze Orman book, and reading the front cover and the prologue.

(3) Downloading some apps, which yes, is a form of spending money.

(4) Using the same program that my bank used to scare me straight to set a goal! And a timeline!

Now all I have to do is use these things... and my darn brain.

Are you chicks all financially fit, or do you struggle with spending?