How I Arrived at this Stage Again

A post by Valorie Burton titled "What is it Finally Time for You to Do" hit my inbox. Now I have been known to skate on her posts because they require more work than I'm willing to do. However, I read this one. It hit me. It's finally time to deal with my money and get my financial house in order.
Now this is not the first time I had engaged in this process. I grabbed my Money Book. A simple composition book where I had been recording my $ stats since early 2000. I began to record in my 2 categories. What I Have & What I Owe. Just this step was empowering. I didn't have access to all the info at that time but little by little I filled in the numbers.( I have just one figure to obtain). I looked at it all and realized I had been whittling down my debt. I forgave myself for any past indescretions, acts of stupidity or just plain falling asleep at the wheel.
I also thought about and wrote down my feelings about money and how I was handling/thinking about it and shaped those thoughts into a few goals.
The next momentous thing that happened was flipping thru my Citibank statements, I noticed that I paid $200 interest the previous year. WHAT!!!! Now the loan was roughly $1,200 at the time of that statement. I've yet to confirm. I'm still mortified. In February however the balance hovered around $812 or so. I had just made my usual $40 payment. Something clicked. Stupidity of the situation perhaps. I got in gear. Since I had received a bonus from my job, I put 400 of that toward the loan. My other terrific action. Was to put about take $300 from my savings toward a non-interest bill that is due yearly. I surmissed I could pay them 50 bucks a month and still be okay. In the following two weeks I made another 40 payment to Citibank. Silly me for not cancelling that payment since I decided I'd shift that 40 to my Amex which has a much higher interest rate.
All told I'm awaiting my next statment from Citi which will give me a much better idea of where I am.