This is guest post from my dad.  In an old post, he described his thoughts on the business of relationships.

When you get to looking back on things in your life that seem important one day and have very little lasting impact on your quality of life, the biggest one has to be the status symbol.  Advertisers, bankers, friends and others convince you that these things are something you have to have and your life will not be as good as everybody else’s without them.  I can recall many things that were at one time considered status symblols if you had them.  Vacation homes, expensive cars (Mercedes or BMW), trendy Christmas toys and clothing brands that are too many to remember have come and gone over the years.  I think even the most frugal and level headed among us will admit to falling victim to a status symbol for the value of it. Most are no longer considered to have much status as the $100 pair of jeans has been replaced by the $185 pair of jeans.  The price of attaining status has continued to go up over the years.  I think the air Jordan craze started it all in clothing.  Nobody wanted their kid in Converse all stars anymore, and no kid wanted to be wearing Converse all stars when Air Jordan’s’ came out (Jeffs note: unless you were/are an L-7 weenie)!  I think I have finally noticed a new status symbol creeping into people’s financial discussions- Paying off a mortgage!

Lasting Impact

This latest status symbol has been seen sneaking into the main steam now is one with more value and more lasting impact than your worn out BMW that now costs an arm & a leg to fix.  I believe that symbol of having a paid off mortgage on your home has come to the forefront since the aftermath of the financial crisis left people gasping for their financial lives.  The current state of the financial meltdown has upended many people’s financial life and lifestyle.  Using your house as a piggy bank and emptying out the equity that you build up propped up many unsustainable life styles. Those chickens came home to roost and now I hear people talking about having there mortgage paid off and how much better they feel.  Although the U.S. tax system makes it seem like you should always have a home mortgage (I subscribed to the theory for a long time) to get the tax write offs, I recently decided that having a paid off mortgage would allow me to pay whatever I owed as my fair share of the national tax burden.  The old fashion 30 year note is now so low that making double principle payments is within many average income peoples reach.  A 15 year loan makes the most sense for those just starting out as they will save a load of interest over the life of the loan and get it paid for just when kids’ college bills may be kicking in.  Interest rates are so low now you could easily get into a 15 year note.  My first home loan was 19% and the owner bought it down to 16%.

Jeff’s note: I agree with this.  Many people have seen family members, friends or neighbors lose their home, and I think it has rattled a lot of cages.  Once you pay off your mortgage, no one can take your home from you – it’s yours (Unless you fail to pay taxes, but we wont get into that).

Less Stress (and Cash Needed) Later in Life and Retirement

Having a paid off mortgage would make many people’s lives and retirement a much simpler and less stressful process.  I cannot imagine having a mortgage to pay going into retirement.  I think that is why they say you should have 70-80% of your pre-retirement income when you retire.  Not having a mortgage will enable you to get by on much less.  The pride that I have seen in people with a paid off mortgage note is unmistakable.  This has been a much more difficult goal to attain, but worth the long term commitment.  Having a paid off mortgage demonstrates an ability to plan and make sacrifices over the long term to attain a truly worthwhile goal. Having accomplished this, it will enable a person to make many more choices in their life and be much more financially secure. Owning your home (not living in a bank owned home) has now taken up its rightful place in the American consciousness again.  For true financial security, you should strive to pay off your home.  You will be able to sleep better at night because of it.  Time is your ally in this endeavor and getting in a hurry will almost always lead to dire consequences.

Readers: Do you have a paid off mortgage?  If not, are you working on paying it early, or are you focused on other debts?  Those of you with a mortgage, how would it feel to not have to pay that  amount every month, but instead keep it?

Unfortunately, my finances didnt go quite as I had hoped this month.  I was able to keep my spending low in most categories, but I had a few big purchases (as usual) that ate up my debt money.  One was for the farm shares (post coming) and another was for my suit for the wedding.  Other than that, I was at/or under budget for just about every category.  Looking forward to getting on track for February so that I can buy a beer kit!

Debt:

This is all the debt I’ve got left to pay.  It used to include more student loans and credit cards but those have since been payed off.

Student Loans

Great Lakes Loan $11,157 ($90)  I hate this loan.  It never goes down.  I got my tax form from them this year, and I paid them over 1,000 in interest.  This does not make me happy either.  I get a tax write off for it, but I’d rather have the money

Truck Loan

Ford Credit: $8,861  ($300):  This is my next target.  In order to keep myself motivated to pay off this goal, I decided to set myself a mini goal.  Hopefully this works well, and if it does, I’ll continue to use it.  I’d really like to complete my mini goal with the help of snowball payments, but it could work out that I just get there using the regular loan payment.  If this is the case that’s fine (I guess) but it will surely take longer!

Health Goals

Though the year is out, i’m still going to keep this going in my monthly reviews.  Since I’ve got a goal of running a marathon for next year, i’ll be counting runs in this as well.  I’ve got my marathon training all mapped out, and I start at the end of this month!

Goal Workouts: 20

In this number of goal workouts, I’m counting my visits to the gym, my running (priming for marathon training) and also my hunting.  At first I was unsure whether or not to count hunting but after guesstimating that I walked approximately 6 miles a day with 25+ lbs of gear, I figured I’d count it.  My hunting will only count this month anyhow.

Total Visits: 30

In terms of the gym, this was a great month – the only day that I didnt go was new years day, and looking back on it, I regret it now.  I should have schlepped myself over there for a bit, but then again there was no way to know how much success I would have had.  I also started training for my marathon on the 31st.  It was just a 3 mile run, but you’ve got to start somewhere, right?

One big part of sustainability (to me) is food.  What you eat, how often you eat it, what your food eats, where it comes from, how it gets to your fridge and so on.  There are so many variables to how your food comes to your plate that affect all of my favorite topics: finances (cost), sustainability (transportation/”food miles”, growing practices/feeding, inputs/fertilizers/hormones/etc) and health (what you eat/how much/how often).  In an effort to lower my own impact, I’ve been focusing on getting my own food – mostly meat, but hopefully next summer I can try my hand at gardening.  When I do go out and get my own food, I like to do a bit of cost/benefit analysis.  Was it worth it for me to get it, or should I just save the time/money and buy it at the store?  If you’re curious you can find part one (halibut) and part two (duck) on the site.

This time, the hunt was for elk.  Here’s what it cost:

• Elk Tag: $52
• Conservation Stamp for 2011:  $12.50  - This is something anyone in wyoming who is hunting or fishing has to purchase.  Usually they use the money for land conservation.  The stamp is good for 1 calendar year.
• Conservation Stamp for 2012: $12.50 – Unfortunately, these stamps are good for a calendar year, not from year to date purchase.  Since I didnt get an elk in 2011, I had to buy a new one.  Feeling like I was buying these things all the time annoyed me (and I didnt want to forget), so I bought a lifetime conservation stamp for $180.50.  I just used the yearly cost here though.  If the price stays the same, I’ll be money ahead in 15 years, and sooner if the price goes up.
• Gun/Ammo: Borrowed/given to me – but this will be an expense in the future.  Obviously the gun will be a 1 time expense, but not the ammo.
• Gas: $200 – This area isn’t really close to my house at all and I’d guesstimate I used 3 tanks of gas I wouldn’t have used otherwise.  I went up a total of 5 times and I took my truck 2 of those times, using a full tank both times.  The third was for meeting the rest of my group.
• Foil/Saran Wrap: $8 – Yes, even though I bought some in Alaska, I needed more to process my elk meat.
• 750 mL of whiskey: $11 – Needed.
• Grinding: Free – Usually I pay to have the tougher cuts ground into burger meat, but a co-worker has a grinder that she is willing to let me use, which is a huge score!

Obviously, that’s quite a long list, and the total is $297, which is about what I spent on the halibut (go figure) but  is still a whole slew of money.

Before I went out last Saturday, I was pretty pessimistic about the whole thing, figuring that I’d thrown all that cash down the drain and not gotten anything from it (for the second year in a row)!  Even after I ate my lunch on Saturday, and we had finished our loop and were headed back to the truck, I was ready to go home and had made the decision to give it up for the season.  Thankfully, we stumbled upon some tracks and I was able to bring one down after some stalking.  So once I drug the thing back to the truck (2 miles!) and went home, I had to get to work processing and weighing. After everything was deboned, I had 58 lbs of meat.  This is meat of all different grades and qualities, from things that need to be slow cooked or ground because they aren’t tender to things that are very, very tender and tasty.  (Pictures: Pre deboned meat from 1 rear leg, and a de-boned rear leg [pic1, pic2]).  I basically spent most everyday from Saturday to Thursday trimming the silver off, and spent about 3 hours last this Saturday wrapping everything up.  Obviously, it doesn’t end once you’re out of the field.

I had to cut all of the silver off so the meat wouldnt taste gamey, and I’m guessing that was about 5 pounds, leaving me with about 53 pounds of useable meat.  This puts my total cost per pound at $5.12, which I think is pretty good.  While not all of what I got is “steak” quality, it is all organic, grass fed, pasture raised, etc.  Overall, that’s a pretty cheap price per pound for meat like that – I’ve done the math on buying a side of beef and it comes out somewhere between 6 and 7 bucks a pound (at least around here).  I figure this is a pretty good comparison, so I’m happy with the results.

I also don’t think I’ll need to do this again next year.  H is a vegetarian, so I’ve got all of this to eat myself or give away.  I’ve already given some away  and will probably give away more. I’ll save some for my bachelor party this summer and probably keep the rest (shockingly, I had enough freezer room after my quest to eat freezer stuff).  The unfortunate thing about this is that I could have spent all of that money and came up with nothing, but that is just how it all works.  Buying a tag isnt like buying the meat off the carcass – it does take a considerable amount of time and effort, but to me it’s worth it.

Some thoughts on the cost: I try not to put a price on the time I spend outdoors in some gorgeous country (if you want to know what the area looks like, check my facebook picture) because that is subjective, and I could derive more value from it than others (or less).  I also don’t count the benefit of the workout I get, but I do count it towards my workout total for the month – it’s a lot of walking.

Readers: Do you hunt, or are you interested in it?  Are you lucky enough to have a friend that just gives you meat instead of you having to go get it yourself?  Have you ever considered hunting as a (long-term) strategy to save money and increase the quality of your food?

This blog started out as a way for me to keep track debt, as well as my attempts at saving money (to pay off said debt) by living a more sustainable life.  Obviously, a lot can (and has) happened over the past two years, and my thoughts and feelings on quite a few issues have evolved over this amount of time.   I think the one that has most evolved though, have been my thoughts (or rather, actions) towards my debt for the year.

I distinctly remember telling my dad not too long after I started that I wanted to pay off all my debt, mainly because (at the time) I owed what was equivalent to almost 2 full years of pre-tax salary.  Meaning that if I paid every single cent I earned towards my debt, it would take me 2 full years to become debt free.  My dad was understanding that I had a high debt-to-income ratio, but was much more restrained when talking about it.  While he thought that getting rid of debt was a good idea (and even more so in my case).  He was less enthused about complete and total debt removal and debt freedom, however.  Here’s what he told me (Im paraphrasing here, it was a while ago):

It’s a great goal Jeff, but not really possible.  In todays world, debt isn’t something that you cant completely live without – but you do need to manage it wisely.

At the time, I understood what he was saying, but I didnt let it get in my way – I wanted to be debt free (still do) and couldnt understand why everyone else wouldnt want that same thing.  Every bit of math that I looked at and every story I read kept showing telling me how much better life was/has been since the author became debt free, and what plans the author has for the future.

For those of you who were reading last year and have been reading most of this year, you can tell that I have made nowhere near the progress that I was able to in 2010.  Of course, there were a lot of different “big ticket” items that I bought this year – I paid over 1,000 in state and federal taxes, I bought an engagement ring, I spent the better part of the summer and fall on the road for work, vacation and more weddings, I booked a honeymoon for H and I, along with countless other things.  I did manage to pay off one loan and make a big payment on my truck loan.  I didnt have to pay any of these “big ticket” things in 2010, and it looks like some of them will go away in 2012, but will be replaced by others (like my wedding).  Still though, having all of these expenses in 2010 instead of 2011 would have just tossed me into the abyss because of all of my debt at the time.  This year, I was able to pay cash for all of the items mentioned above.

Obviously, making all of these huge purchases didnt really do much for my debt repayment.  I’ve been trying to figure out lately why exactly that is (aside from the fact that you cant spend the same dollar two times), and I’ve thought up a couple of reasons.  I think that one of the reasons is that I’m not standing on the edge of the grand canyon of debt anymore.  My high debt level is no longer the ‘boogeyman’ that it once was.  One missed paycheck wont put me out on the street anymore, nor will I lay awake nights worrying about how I’m going to pay off my credit cards or any other bills, for that matter.  My debt level is no longer almost 2 years of my yearly salary.  Due to salary increases and my focused debt repayment, it’s less than half my yearly earnings.

The clear realization that i’d be up what they refer to as “shit creek” (or crick) in the event of a possible job loss really pumped up the intensity in my eyes.  There was a legitimate fear that pushed me to work far too often on a daily (and weekly) basis.  That same fear made sure that I kept getting up before 5am and stayed working until around 9 pm three nights a week.  The risk is now gone – and so is the drive and intensity that pushed me through 2010.

One of the other reasons is because I had a lot of things this year that I would have rather done than repay my debt (bad, I know) – I enjoyed being there for my friends weddings and seeing them happy at their wedding, I enjoyed my time in Alaska, and of course, I’m excited to be engaged and getting married to H.

Given that’ it’s the beginning of the year, this leaves me wondering where I’ll be headed over the course of this year.  Of course, I’d like to pay down the remainder of my debt in order to give H and I more flexibility after we tie the knot – expanding our cash flow will allow us to save for travel, a home, or whatever else we decide that we want to do in the future.  Of course, I’ll be sharing the continued journey here (to the extent that H feels comfortable –  I havent really talked it over with her yet).  Now that the boggeyman is gone, I feel like my debt is on the backburner and I’d really like to move it to the foreground and get as much of it reduced by the time I get married as I can.  It’s time for my focus to come back.  I can increase my income and I can lower my expenses and tighten back up my budget.  That should free up quite a bit of cash flow to pay more to debt.

Readers: When you had backed yourself off of the cliff of debt where 1 mistake would put you down in the hole, did your intensity go down like mine did, or did you get even more intense?  Why do you think that you made the choice that you did?  If you got less intense, were you able to eventually reach debt freedom sometime in the future, or do you still carry debt, but not as much or of the same type that you used to?

So, as many of you know, H and I signed up for a CSA last summer/fall.  I wrote about what I got and what I did with it on the site on a monthly basis (our ‘shares’ were delivered weekly).  Of course, we got inundated with fruit at certain times of the year (peaches in july, pears in august, and apples in november and december).  Being the value centered personal finance geek that I am, I wanted to see if using this saved us any money on our food bill.  Unfortunately, I wasnt able to track how many pounds of what fruit we got per week, and the cost of something similar at the store because I didnt think of the idea soon enough.  I still wanted to keep track of the cost, so I figured that the next best way to do it would be to compare this years food spending with last years food spending for the same time period, and see where I spent more.

This of course is far from rigorous – I was traveling a lot this summer, meaning I was eating out a bit more than usual, and not eating at home as much.  Since I’ll only be tracking grocery expenses, this could skew them a bit low.  Not only that, but H and I try to split the groceries – one week I pay, one week she pays.  However if we need to go the store and the person who should be paying is busy/out of town/not feeling like going to the store, the other one pays.  I’m sure over time we are probably pretty close to even, but there could be some seasonal fluctuation in there.

So in 2011, I recorded 25 transactions on groceries from the months of August through November (I dropped off both the two weeks in july and the two weeks at the beginning of december to make records keeping easier).  There were 25 transactions, totaling $650.  This amounted to approximately 40% of what I spent for my “food and dining” category in 2010.  While there was a few things that should probably be thrown out (there was a purchase of some vitamin water and gummie bears (yes, I remember what I bought 6 months ago – but only because this is one of about 2 times I’ve purchased something at this place in my life).  Thankfully, this category was the largest of my food expenses (beating out hooch, and eating out).  One thing to note is that I cant break out fruit from the totals here, and that the of the fruit that was bought, none was organic, which our CSA is.  That of course would have increased the price.

In 2010, I logged 33 transactions at the grocery store that cost a total of $470.  This also amounted to 40% of my total expenses in the “food and dining” category.  Most of these, however, were for distinctly non meal related items.  There were 20 (!!!) transactions from whole foods, most of which were things for my lunches on that day.  There also were some times in there where I had to pick up something specific (like a duck) that I couldn’t get where I live, but most of those 20 transactions where for lunch.  There was also 1 transaction for the meat processor – from when I went hunting antelope and had the meat ground up to sausages and burger.  Less those two places, there was 12 transactions at the grocery store for me in 2010.

Clearly, this was not exactly what I expected to find.  Not only was I shocked at how much more I spent in 2011 than in 2010, I’m surprised at the amount of times I bought stuff at whole foods (though this was noted about a year ago in Trending Up).  I had expected the numbers to come out roughly even or with me spending more in 2010 – what I did notice was that while I was having fewer transactions, the average went up from about 4 a transaction to 10 a swipe.  Now that I’ve noticed this, it looks like I’ll need to do a better job avoiding the grocery store, and better record keeping for a more apt comparison next year.  I’ll also need to do a better job meal planning (which I’ve been working on) and considering cost when doing so (also, working on it).  Finding this out leaves me with plenty of areas to improve on, obviously.

Readers: Are you ever suprised by what you find when you’re digging through your accounts?  How have you been able to change and reverse course so that you can do better in the future?  Any specific tricks for my case of spending too much

This is a guest post from Eric at Narrow Bridge Finance as part of the Yakezie blog swap. Eric writes about investing, budgeting, entrepreneurship, and taxes.  This week, we are discussing How to raise a millionaire – developing your child’s entrepreneurial aptitude. You can see my post on the same topic at Eric’s site.

While I am single and kids are not going to be in my future anytime soon, I occasionally think about our education system and what I might do to ensure my kids have a successful future. Raising the next generation of millionaires will be a challenge, but I think I might be up to it.

Be Open

The first step to ensuring that kids grow up knowing how to handle their finances is to be a positive role model for them. How should a kid be expected to know how to properly use credit cards and bank accounts if they never see how they should work.

My parents took me with to the bank and taught me how checking and savings accounts work at a young age. I never thought credit cards were mysterious, because my parents told me that when you use them, you still have to pay the money back right away.

While I never knew the details until high school and college, I always knew how our family finances worked. Even now, I still discuss my parent’s investment strategy with them, though usually now they are asking me for stock advice.

Teach Through Experience

When my piggy bank was full or I received a check for my birthday or Chanukah, I always helped count it up and went to the bank with my Mom to make the deposit. Even when I was five years old, I was making the deposits into my own account.

While I am sure the teller thought I was just a cute kid going along to the bank, I always understood that the bank held my money until I needed it back. I learned how the accounts work and how to save rather than just spend everything I had.

Independence

When I got my first job and first car, it was time to open my first checking account. I always had savings, but never needed a high volume transaction account until I was sixteen. My parents were always there to help me manage the account, but I did it on my own.

I deposited my own paychecks and setup direct deposit. I paid my parents every month for my car insurance and bought my own gas and paid my own car repairs. Starting with something like a car was a good way to learn financial independence. If I wanted to use it, I had to pay for it responsibly. It gave me an important lesson on the value of money and how to manage my cash flow.

Teach the Tough Lessons

When I was in third grade, my mom had to stop me from spending every dollar I had on Power Rangers action figures. She let me get a few, but told me that the money would be worth more to me later on and that I should keep it for when I really needed it.

That money became a college fund (which I never needed) and later a down payment on my house. Sure, I didn’t have as much back then. I now make more per month than I had in total when I was in third grade, but the lesson was learned.

You can’t always make sense to an eight year old, but you have to be firm and teach your children while letting them be independent and make a few of their own mistakes. That is the only way that they will grow up to be successful and independent when you are not there to help.

After looking at my numbers for 2011, I have to admit that I’m not all that happy with my progress – which I’ve said before.  This is something that obviously I expected – no one’s debt free journey is perfect (well, maybe it is, but I have not found someone like that), but I had hoped that my dept repayment “swoon” wouldnt be a full 14 months!  Way back at the end of 2010 – katie from red balloon and I had about the same debt level.  Right now, she’s about 3 months away from paying off all debt, while my level is still much higher than I’d like, and would still take some very hard work to get my debt down to 0.  Clearly I’m envious of her debt free position on the horizion, but the choices that I made in 2011 I wouldnt take back for anything.  At this point, they are just what they were, and are nothing to get mad at myself (or anyone else) about.  I just need to move on, and develop a plan for the first half of 2012.  I’m not really counting the second half of the year because I’ll be married by then, and I dont want to bore H with charts, graphs and numbers drawn in crayon about our future.  At this point, I’d like to think that we’ll have a strategy for 2012 sometime in Q3 of 2011, after the honeymoon, but that’s a post for another day.

At any rate, I set a financial goal to pay down about 1/2 of the truck loan from now until the wedding in july.  The current balance is slightly over 9,000.  To make things easy, my goal will be to get the balance to 4,500 by july 15.  That being my main goal, I’d like to set a few smaller goals to keep myself motivated and stay on track.

To make sure that I stay on track, I’ve found a carrot for myself.  I’ve got a post coming up about homemade hard cider, and H and I really enjoyed making it, so I’d like to continue down that road by starting to brew my own beer.  I’ve got a lot of friends that really enjoy brewing and would be happy to help, and may even drink the rot gut that I turn out for the first two batches and tell me why it sucked, where I messed up, and what to watch out for next time.  Since I’ve already got some of the equipment from the cider making (and deep frying exploits) I thought it’d be fun to take the plunge.  So, after talking to a few people, I found a kit that I’d like to start with.  I almost went ahead and bought this, but  I hesitated for a bit and then came to a revelation – I could use this as bait to get myself to do something that I really want.  What I really want is to pay off the truck, so I figured this brew kit would be a great halfway reward.

My plan from this point is to get this kit as a present for myself when I pay down 2,250 on my truck.  Obviously, I’d like that to come sooner rather than later, but I’ll keep working towards this – I think what I’m going to do is put a sticky note that says “brew kit+truck” on my wallet, so that every time I’m tempted to spend, i’ll remember that goal and think long and hard about my purchase.

Readers:  Do you reward yourself with small purchases when you pay off debt?  Last time I did this I paid off my credit cards, went to atlanta, then got back on track for a while, but I have since veered off track.  

Sorry this is so late – my posting calendar got filled up with end of year things over the holdiays, and I just forgot this was in here!

I’ve been feeling rather uncomfortable with my finances and my debt repayment lately, and I havent been able to quite figure out why.  Looking over my numbers, it looks like I’m making progress, but it doesnt seem like I actually am making progress.  Very frustrating situation, let me tell you.  It also seems like I’ve been having to make  quite a bit of forward purchases that are rather expensive (like my wedding suit).  Obviously, I’ll be able to wear it more than once, but it was still a large chunk of money.  Through of 2011 I was only able to make (read: choose to make) 1 payment on my debt above the minimums, and even ended up getting screwed on that (thanks, direct loans).

This year, I’m trying to renew my focus on finances after taking a break of a little over a year.  I’ve got a few wedding related expenses that are coming up so I’ll need to watch out for those.  I still need to pay for my suit (I picked one out, but wont be paying for it until I pick it up), I need a shirt and a tie as well.  I’ve got to pay for some march madness tickets for a mini vacation in march with H and her sister and buy a conservation stamp for hunting.  Other than that, I dont think there will be any more big expenses, so I’ll need to keep up with the small stuff that typically breaks me during the month.

Student Loans

Great Lakes Loan $11,247($98)  I hate this loan.  It never goes down.

Truck Loan

Ford Credit: $9,161 ($302):  This one will be my next target.  Just made the minimum payment here, and am hoping to get more to pay towards it in january. I’m hoping i’ll be able to have it paid off by the time I get married.  I’ve also figured out another game for this to help me pay it down faster, which you’ll read about friday.

Health Goals

Though the year is out, i’m still going to keep this going in my monthly reviews.  Since I’ve got a goal of running a marathon for next year, i’ll be counting runs in this as well.  I’ve got my marathon training all mapped out, and I start at the end of this month!

Goal Workouts: 20

Total Visits: 8

Not great this month, but I was on the road for quite a bit and wasnt able to use my home gym.  Of course, that’s just an excuse, but now that I’ve got focused goals for next year, i’m hoping to blow this one out of the park for the year.  I’d like to keep up my weight lifting as well as adding running to the mix, so that should be pretty easy to make.  I wont start my marathon program until february, but I’ll be “priming” in january, running a few miles a couple of days per week (probably 3 miles a clip, 2 times per week for those curious.

One of the reasons that I really like putting my thoughts out on the site is because of the great comments I get from you readers.  A while back, I had small dilema with my shirts, which I went over in this article.  One of the comments that I got and ended up giving a try came from mike over at mike and mollys house.  Instead of tossing them into the compost bin like I was considering, mike suggested I get some dye and dye them black.

Now that the holidays are over and I’ve had some time, I decided to give that a try.  I went to the store and picked up a package of dye for about 2 bucks.  I gathered together the shirts that I was going to dye and followed these instructions.  The process was pretty simple, really.

I got a 5 gallon pail, filled it with hot water and dropped about 1/2 of the shirts I had in there.  I didnt quite have enough dye for all the shirts I wanted to dye, and also figured this would be a good trial run – mainly to see if it was actually worth the effort.  I put the dye in the bucket with the shirts, and began to stir.  I stirred for about a half hour, and it was a big pain – you have to stir constantly.  Once that was over, simply rinse until the water coming off the shirt runs clear.  After this, I washed both shirts because I’m allergic to dyes and hung them to dry.  All in all, I’d say that the whole process took just over an hour.

Stirring the dye pot

As for the results, the shirts didnt come out quite as black as I would have liked – but I think that was mostly a function of how long I left the shirts in the dye bucket.  They probably wouldnt have gotten that much darker if I set them in there for 2 hours, which is something I was not going to do.  As for the stains, they are sort of gone – it is no longer a gross color on white, but that area did dye a little bit darker than the rest of the shirt.

Now that I look at the picture, I think that the next time that I do this, I’ll leave the shirts in the dye bucket for a bit longer – i’d really like the darker black.  On the upside however, this seemed to work pretty well, and I’d surely do it again.  Now that I’ve done it once, I think it’d take a bit less time to do again.  All in all, a fairly cheap and successful DIY project – a nice way to squeeze a bit more life out of these t-shirts.

Readers: have you tried this before?  Have you done anything with clothing dye?  This was my first time, and I’m pretty happy with the results.  Do you just think that I’ve gone off the deep end and taken frugality a bit too far?

Update: If you plan on trying this yourself, make sure to was your recently died shirts alone first.  There appears to have been a small mishap with some of the clothing that these shirts got into the wash with.  While they didnt completely color them, they did leave a faded black on there.

Since it’s the first week of 2012, I figured that I’d share my goals for 2012 with all of you.  I don’t list every goal in every category, but I do put the ones that I feel relate to the things we talk about on the blog.

At the beginning of every year for about the last 6 years I’ve set some goals for myself.  Over the years I’ve found that breaking them down into categories is the best way for me to go.  I typically break my goals into top level categories, such as finances and health.  From those categories, I get down into the nitty gritty – perhaps creating a goal in the “finance” category of “saving X dollars for Y purchase by Z Date”.  Picking the higher level categories allows for me to decide if that category is something that’s really worth focusing on for the year, and picking goals for that category allow me to advance my progress in that category.  My goals started with just a few categories and have now branched out to about 6 categories.

I find it very difficult to write my finance goals list for this year.  Last year it was simple-pay off one student loan and try to pay off the truck.  While I didn’t pay off my truck, I made good progress and I didn’t go into more debt, so I was fairly happy with my results.  This year though, my financial goals won’t just be “mine.”  I’m getting married in July so I can’t have my own financial goals anymore (not that this is a bad thing).  So, it’s something that I’ve been trying to deal with over the final month of the year.  Luckily, H and I have similar financial habits (now that I’ve changed mine, for the most part) and we both enjoy the same things: travel, friends, food, family, etc.  Liking the same things will make it easier to prioritize and make it easier to create goals.  Like me, she’s very debt averse, so that will factor into all of our decisions.  Unlike me, she’s really interested in buying a house.  I’m not against it, I’m just still trying to figure out exactly what I’d like in a house so that I can better communicate that to her and try to get us on the same page.  A potential house purchase is something we have been talking about for some time, and we are starting to get closer and closer to what we want in a future home.  As it’s looking now, me figuring out what I want isn’t going to happen right away, so we may just set a large savings goal for a house downpayment (in addition to what we’ve been saving for the past 15 or so months) for the end of the year, to be used sometime in the future.  I told her a long time ago that I wasn’t willing to sign a 30 year note (15 years for this guy), told her why, then showed her the numbers – she seemed to be OK with that, so that’s something else out of the way.

Unfortunately, all of this leaves me in a lurch for 2012.  Whether or not I complete my goals is no longer a matter of how low I can get my expenses, how high I can get my income, and simply paying off debts.  Now I have to think about what’s best for both H and I, given our goals for the future and taking into account both of our situations.  I can’t just say “pay off truck in 2012″ I have to see if that’s the best use of our available cash, and how H feels about doing that.  I’m not getting married until July though, so I think I’ll set some first part of the year goals and then revisit sometime after we get married and get situated and used to married life.

The first goal that I’ll have is to not add any new debt from now until the wedding.  This shouldn’t be that hard, but it could be a bit difficult, so I just want to put it out there.  I’ve got a lot of things to prepare for in terms of wedding clothing, gifts, etc.  I’d love to be able to cash flow all of the things that I need to buy (which I will post about later).  I think this will also keep me from going overboard on weddings (much easier than you’d think).

My next goal is to pay down half of the truck loan.  I initially thought about trying to pay off the remaining ~9,000 by the wedding date so that when I got married, the only debt that I would bring is my final student loan.  Though I don’t think I’ll be able to make that, i’d really like to lower the amount on this loan quite a bit before I get married.  I think I can do this by keeping my wedding expenses to a minimum and getting creative in other areas, such as going out and travel.  If I can cut these things down, this goal should be no problem.

The final goal is to create joint financial goals with H after we get married.  Obviously, once this is done we can continue to move forward as a couple with our joint goals, and work to complete them together.  Right now, I’ve got a bit of an idea about what will shake out of that conversation and be transferred onto paper.  Once that happens, I’ll probably update you all on the new set of financial goals, and our methods to get there.  .

Readers:  What are your health goals for the coming year?  Do you have health goals, or are you simply trying to maintain what you’ve got?  Are you goals focused on weight-loss or something different?