by Jeff on September 10, 2010
My Pretty Pennies does this every week, and I try to do it every week as well. If you’re interested, you can head over to her website and copy the questions to your blog and post!
1. The most I’ve spent this last week was on $300, on a payment to my student loan. I could have this paid off at the end of the month. I’m really hoping that I do.
2. Today I feel fine (I dont know if I’ll ever answer this question differently) towards money.
3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free/inexpensive thing I did last week that made me happy was crap! I cant think of anything that I did besides walking the dog. I want to go out and watch the wild horses this weekend though.
4. I will consider this week a success if I make it through the weekend with the $78 I have left in my account.
5. My first job was a Lifeguard. I did it in high school and through college. It’s nice cause you don’t have to work that hard, you get a lot of breaks that are good for studying and it typically pays well.
by Jeff on September 3, 2010
I think I’ll do yearly goals updates every 3 months. It will help be get on track and make sure that none of my goals falls too far out of my mind. Keeping things in my mind will hopefully keep me focused on them and allow me to complete them. If you’re wondering what my goals were/are check here, and if you’re looking for previous progress, check out how I was doing at the 6 month mark.
2010 Money Goals
- Pay Off Credit Cards – This has been a goal for quite a while, but I’m getting traction now. Balance as of Jan 2010: $6,026
Finally! After YEARS of hollow “pay off my credit cards” goal setting, I’ve done it. If you want to read about it, click here.
- Have 3 Months of Living Expenses in the bank – I’ve wrestled with this for a while, because of my frequent travel to/from my office. If I lose my job (not likely) I’ll also lose ~$500 of work-related monthly expenses. So, the question becomes, do I go for the lower amount of expenses or higher? I think I’ll try to split the difference and make it half way. Goal $4,800 – $6,600
- Although I’m trying for this, I’m not too sure if I’ll be able to hit the minimum (actually, I’m fairly positive I won’t, unless something changes). While it’s only September and no one knows for sure what can happen, I’m fairly sure I won’t have 4 spare G’s just lying around between now & the end of the year. I do know I wont have nothing in the living expenses bank, but I’m fairly sure I wont have this much either. Goal will probably be partially completed. Still will be a win in my mind though, because I have never had money for living expenses in the bank.
- Get Total Debt Level Below $37,500. As of Jan 2010, it was sitting at ~55,400 (This was after I bought my truck, but before I had to make the first payment). This will be a tough goal to reach, but I think I can do it.
- This is going to be very doable, but will be a pretty heavy lift. Due to the amount of commuting I do, my plans are sometimes thwarted by weather related road closures. However, holiday season is also coming up, these holidays give me paid days off at my regular job, and I typically use those days off to work at my 2nd job. At current standing, I’m at about 40,541. This is only 3k away from where I want to be!
- Pay off Small Student Loan – This loan is just annoying. It’s $3,073 and I think it’s next on the hit list after my credit cards.
- Last month I made my first large payment to this loan, and I’m hoping to have this one knocked out during the first week of October.
2010 Health Goals
- Join the Gym – I made a decision last fall that I wasn’t going to join the Gym until my credit cards were paid off, and I though that it was going to happen sooner than it has, but Oh well. If I can get 4 months in at the gym, I’ll be a happy camper in December
- I joined the gym! Although this was a fairly easy goal simply requiring me to part with some money every month, it took me almost 6 weeks to join ( I had planned on joining right after my last update).
- Go to gym 4/5x per week. ’Nuff Said.
- This one has proven to be much more difficult. I’ve been going about 3x per week, and I feel like there’s always more time that I could go. Hopefully I’ll be able to bump this one up soon.
2010 Environment Goals
- Walk to do my errands more around town. I typically walk for about half of the errands that I have to run around town, but I’d like to get that closer to walking all the time.
- I’ve been walking a lot to do my errands. Complete for now, but the year is not over. Could get much harder when the snow comes.
- Learn more about my compost heap and figure out how to make it work better.
- Little to no progress on this. However, I have found out you can compost a lot more than I originally thought you could.
