financial goals for 2012

So yesterday I shared my personal goals with you for the new year and today I'll share my financial goals!  THANK YOU to everyone who left a comment on How Much Do You Spend on Groceries?  That was a huge help.  We've decided to combine our Eating Out line item with our Grocery line item and have just a single budget for Food.  I think this will help keep our spending in check.  Last year we were just shy of spending $16,000 on food and household items.  Doesn't that seem extreme?  No wonder I'm gaining weight!   Our goal this year is to spend $1,000 month on all food and household items/toiletries. 

Not to get off track too much but I didn't write an official post of a 2011 "Recap".  Our family was pretty close to reaching our financial goals last year though.   We began 2011 with our main goal being to save 15% of our income.  In March though our plans changed when we had to replace my car.  Financially speaking, I'm very proud of the fact that we paid cash for the car but at the end of the year instead of saving 15% towards retirement we continued at a 6% savings rate.  I have to keep reminding myself and Mr. Steady that instead of extra money in the retirement account, we have that "money" in the garage.   Also we had a few unplanned expenses (dog surgery and son surgery) and went way over budget on a few things, but overall we stayed close to our budget.  We went over budget by 3%.

But now to my 2012 goals.  We have our budget for the year in place and Mr. Steady and I are both very pleased.  We continue to strive to keep costs low on things that are unimportant to us so that we can allocate money to the  areas that we think are important.  

So - here are my goals for the year:

1.  Stick to a budget.  This will require a lot of discipline.  I'll need to say "No" sometimes to certain things, but I also will need remember that I can say "Yes" to things that are in the budget.  Oftentimes when my boys ask for something my knee jerk reaction is to say, "No...we don't have the money to do that."  But a lot of times we do have the money budgeted and we can do what they're asking as long as we're smart with our choices.  Know what I mean?

2.  Continue to log expenses.  I have a very fancy way of doing this.  I track all of my expenses on paper and at the end of the money I add them up with a calculator.  Then...I transfer them on the an Excel spreadsheet!  I've tried many other ways that promise to be more efficient, but this is the only thing that works for me.

My elaborate accounting system.

3.  Use cash only for food purchases.  My plan is to get cash out at the beginning of each month and use only it for trips to the grocery store and for eating out.

and the main goal of the year...

4.  Save 26% of our gross income.  Both Mr. Steady and I are at a place in our lives right now where we are very motivated to save money.  To do this, we will have to be diligent with #1, #2, and #3.  Blogging certainly helps to keep me focused and reading everyone's blogs helps keep me motivated also.  Things like Carla's January Spend-Less Challenge really help me stay on track with my spending!

So, those are my financial goals for the year.  The key is to remembering them and holding myself accountable!  My plan is to do this my posting a Weekend Update where I review my goal and what steps I'm taking to accomplish them.

personal goals for 2012

I want to share my Personal Goals for 2012.  I'm still working on the 2012 Budget and will post my 2012 Financial Goals as soon as we finish that!  THANK YOU for sharing comments yesterday about how much you spend each month on groceries.  That was a huge help to me!

Personal Goals

Lose weight.

I've rejoined Weight Watchers and will blog my weight loss journey here.  I'm not sure how much I want to lose yet, but know I'd like to get at least to 135.  From there, I'll decide how much more I want and/or need to lose.

Exercise.

*Log at least 4160 minutes of exercise in 2012.

*Log at least 350 miles of running in 2012.

Volunteer.

I want to continue volunteering at the boys schools, with their sports, Scouts, Church and the Master Gardener program.  I want to keep it all in balance though and not do too much, so my goal is to volunteer 100 hours this year. 

Build and strengthen relationships. 

*Last year Katy at The Non-Consumer Advocate had a goal to write 52 Letters in 52 Weeks.  I want to do that this year.  Whether is a long letter or a short note, I want to intentionally sit down, think of a special person, and write a note to them.

*Mr. Steady and I always say, "We should have them over some time..." and "Why don't we do anything with them? They're a lot of fun!"  My goal this year is to do something about that!  I want to get together with friends who we like and/or people who we want to get to know better every 6-8 weeks.  Whether it's dinner or simply Happy Hour on a Friday afternoon, I want to host something at our house.  I've even put $ in the budget to do this so that money can't be an excuse not to do it!

Hobbies.

While I don't want my house to become a wreck while focusing on hobbies and not on housework, I want to designate time enjoying what I like to do.  Things like...

Photography - I want to complete the 12 Weeks to Better Photos homework by Two Peas in a Bucket.

Reading - My goal is to read 20 books in 2012.

Craftiness - I want to complete my unfinished projects from 2011.  I'd also like to finish my 2010 and 2011 scrapbooks and bring my boys school albums up to date.

Gardening - I was accepted into our county's Master Gardener Program which will begin next week.  I'll have class each Monday from 8-4 for 3 months.  I'll have to pass a mid-term and final exam.  Then, I'll have an Intern Project to complete and finally, will need to volunteer 50 hours.  My goal is to graduate from the program and apply all my new knowledge to making our own yard gorgeous!

                                                                    and finally...

Rosetta Stone

These two words have been lingering on my mind since I bought the software this past summer!  In fact, I've blogged about it at least 12 times in the last year.  My goal is to complete the lessons before traveling to Italy in April!

So that's it in a nutshell!  My goals for 2012.  I'll add them to my tab that's at the top of my page and update them as I can!  Financial goals will be coming soon!

mid-month check in

It's "officially" the middle of the month and I want to take a look at my December goals and see how I'm doing.  The boys get out of school today for the Christmas Break and won't return to school until January 3rd...soooooo today I would like to get as many of my To-Do's checked off as possible!



FINANCES

Track spending.
Tracking is up to date I'm happy to say!!

Christmas Gifts.
Don't go over my budgeted amount.  We budgeted a significant amount of $ towards Christmas and there is no reason for us to go over.  To do so would be over indulging.   I'm still within my Christmas budget, but it's always at this time of the Season that I tend to blow it.  All of the gifts are bought and I start thinking of fun little "tuck ins" that the boys would enjoy.  All of those little things add up and usually send me over my limit.  But I planned ahead this year and left some wiggle room for this.  So, even with my extras that I will buy over the next week I'll still be under budget.  (Assuming Mr. Steady didn't go overboard with what he's getting for me!)

PERSONAL

Be mindful of Food, Drink and Exercise.
I think I'm doing well with this.  Since my youngest has his allergies we don't keep too many sweets in the house.  I've been meeting my friends to workout in the mornings (about 3x week) and am happy with my choices.

My Blog.
My blogging has been a bit sporadic and I'd like to challenge myself to blog 4 days a week.  So far, so good!

Vacations.
Make lodging reservations for Italy.  Done! Can't wait!

Complete at least 10 lessons of Rosetta Stone. - haven't done any yet!

Make reservations for one-on-one trip Washington D.C. - still need to do this!  While Mr. Steady and my youngest are skiing, my oldest and I will be taking our 1-on-1 trip to Washington D.C.  Just need to find a reasonably priced hotel near a Metro Station.

Make reservations for one-on-one trip ski trip.  Done!  We've got this entire trip planned minus the rental car.  My husband and youngest son will go to Colorado and ski for their 1-on-1 trip in February.  Flight, lodging, lift tickets and equipment rentals have all been reserved!

Come up with 3 vacation ideas for Mr. Steady's company's 2012 Award Trip- Still need to do this.

FAMILY

Christmas Guests.
My mother-in-law is coming to spend 5 or 6 days with us and I'd like to have our meals planned and prepped as much before she arrives.  Started thinking about meals and have some ideas...just need to finalize and shop/prep as much as I can before she arrives!

Christmas Traditions:
Make cookies for Santa before 7pm on Christmas Eve! - not yet

Make Gingerbread houses with the kids! - not yet

Drive around and see Christmas lights! - not yet

Finish my Advent Stockings (5 days late...I know!)  I finally finished this on December 8th!  I normally hang little stockings up the banister of our stairs, but the ribbon was worn out and I couldn't come up with any creative ideas.  So, I used what I had and hung them all on a little tree down in our basement.  I'm hoping to come up with a different idea for next year.  Maybe I'll remember and work on it in the summer?!?

So how are you all doing with your December goals?  Can you believe it's already the 15th!?!

december goals

What a busy time of year!  My goals for the month are going to be simple.  Especially since I'm still tackling my November to-do's!  Mainly the $$.  I hope to finish up our November expenses today and will see how we did.  I know we had an awfully spendy month -- some budgeted and some not.  I'm hoping that once I see it all on paper it won't be as bad as I think it is.

Anyway -- for DECEMBER goals!

FINANCES

Track spending.
After the month of December I will have tracked our expenses for a solid 12 months!  I'm so excited about this y'all!   In the past several years, I'm always gung-ho in January and will track expenses until March/April.  It happens that way every year!  So, this will be the first time ever that we know exactly where our money went for an entire year.  So, until the end of December, I won't finalize our 2012 budget.  I really want to be realistic about what we can do and what we will allow ourselves to do.  Through tracking I'm learning so many things...like $600/month for groceries and household items isn't enough.  For our family it needs to be somewhere around $1000/month.  Also, we don't need $100/month budgeted for Entertainment.  We normally don't spend that much.

Christmas Gifts.
Don't go over my budgeted amount.  We budgeted a significant amount of $ towards Christmas and there is no reason for us to go over.  To do so would be over indulging. 

PERSONAL

Be mindful of Food, Drink and Exercise.
I started to write down very specific goals for this, but it's December and I'm being honest with myself.  I'm not where I'd hoped to be with weight loss and this isn't the time of year for me to have a specific goal.  With the busyness and temptations that come along with Christmas, it's unrealistic of me to think I'll start losing weight this month.  So, my goal is to make good choices and continue meeting my friends to exercise in the mornings as much as possible.  I will make week-to-week goals for this, but my main goal is to not gain weight.  I think I'm at 143# now and I'd like to end the year at the same # or lower.

My Blog.
My blogging has been a bit sporadic and I'd like to challenge myself to blog 4 days a week.

Vacations.
Make lodging reservations for Italy.
Complete at least 10 lessons of Rosetta Stone.
Make reservations for one-on-one trip Washington D.C.
Make reservations for one-on-one trip ski trip.
Come up with 3 vacation ideas for Mr. Steady's companies Award Trip

FAMILY

Christmas Guests.
My mother-in-law is coming to spend 5 or 6 days with us and I'd like to have our meals planned and prepped as much before she arrives.   I'm hoping my sister and nephew come too and I'd like to do the same!   

Christmas Traditions:
Make cookies for Santa before 7pm on Christmas Eve!
Make Gingerbread houses with the kids!
Drive around and see Christmas lights!
Finish my Advent Stockings (5 days late...I know!)


So - that's it in a nutshell.  I've have more things to add on my weekly to-do list, but this is really what I WANT, WANT, WANT to accomplish for the month.  Especially the travel stuff!

Have your goals for the month?  Did you scale back a bit on yours, realizing it's a busy month?

october budget & goals

We had a great day celebrating my son's 10th birthday yesterday!  We've been working on transitioning him to an allergy-free diet and his birthday was his last day of any "cheats" before going 100% allergy-free today!  Yesterday he woke up to M&M Pancakes and Chocolate Chip Waffles for breakfast.  He got Chick-fil-A and a cupcake for lunch!  After school let out we went bowling as a family (my husband left work early!), which was tons of fun! And then we ate Mexican food and birthday cake last night!  He was exhausted yesterday and asked to go to bed at 8:30.  I'm anxious to see how he feels in the next couple of days after eating so much yeast and sugar.

Today though, unless I make a mistake on label reading, he'll be 100% free from yeast, moldy foods, refined sugar, pork and beef until Thanksgiving.  It's amazing how much food Citric Acid (another no-no) is in!  Pretty much I'll be cooking everything from scratch as there are only a few things I've found (Luna bars, Rice Cakes/Crackers, and some chips) that are okay foods for him.

Anyway - today's post is about the October budget and goals.  I realize we're almost 1/2 way into the month, BUT...better late than never, right?!?

Goals first...

FINANCIAL
Use cash  for everyday purchases

HEALTH
Lose 2 pounds and get to 141#
Drink more water...a goal of 64 ounces each day
Exercise each day in some capacity

PERSONAL
Log 6 hours (from 10/13-10/31) of Rosetta Stone Italian lessons
Finish 2010 scrapbook
Make drop cloth pillows for fall
Take picture of son in last year's Scout uniform
Read 2 books
Make frame to display old recipes
Make lodging arrangements for Italy and Washington D.C. trips


HOUSE
Make bed daily
Only start laundry that can be finished, folded, hung up and put away before bedtime
Clean the house thoroughly twice between now & the end of the month
Clean door frames and doors upstairs and in the basement
Lay bricks around fire pit area

and for the budget...

	Budget
Lucy dog food	0
gifts during year	25
Guitar	25
Subscriptions	25
Dry Cleaning	30
Boy Scouts	75
School lunches	50
Boys Chores (Potential…)	80
Restaurants (incld fast food/pizza)	100
My Blow Money	100
Entmt/Rec	100
Date Night	100
haircare	100
School expenses	100
Pay for grades…at the most…	125
Christmas gifts	200
gasoline ($350/month)	350
Clothing	500
Boys Birthdays - parties & gifts	500
utilities	800
Groceries, household & toiletries	1200

How about you?  Have you made your October goals/budget!  Am I the only one who's just now doing it on the 13th?!?  How are you doing with your goals for the month?

recap for september's non-financial goals

For the month of September I had several things that I wanted to accomplish that didn't have anything (for the most part...) to do with money.  How did it go?!?

FINANCIAL
Use cash  for everyday purchases - BIG FAT FAIL!
Leave my American Express and debit cards at home - FAILED!
Stay within my budget - did pretty good...definitely better than had I not had one at all!
Complete house refinancing - this actually got finished last week!  We'll save about $700/month and we've already set up a new retirement savings account that this $ will be deposited into monthly.

HEALTH
Lose 3 pounds and get to 142# - lost 2 pounds.
Track food and water intake - failed
Drink more water...a goal of 1664 ounces total from 9/5-9/30 - I drank 64 ounces of water most days.
Exercise a total of 780 minutes from 9/5-9/30 - I didn't meet this goal, but I did exercise for 45 minutes 3-4x/week
Have 16 no wine-days from 9/5-9/30 - I counted 5 days without wine. 

PERSONAL
Log 10 hours (from 9/5-9/30) of Rosetta Stone Italian lessons - Completed about 2 hours of lessons.
Finish 2010 scrapbook - almost done
Make chalkboard using foot board I purchased in the spring - didn't do
Make drop cloth pillows for fall - didn't do
Sew on badges to scout shirt and take picture of son - sewed patches...need to take picture
Keep up with my Bible Study homework - yes
Finish Maine scrapbooks - yes!  This was a huge, huge project!!!
Complete 2 lessons with youngest for God & Family - no...will table this until football season is over
Read The Glass Castle - yes...loved it!
Read The Happiness Project - yes...didn't love it

HOUSE
Make bed daily - 90% yes
Only start laundry that can be finished, folded, hung up and put away before bedtime - 90% yes
Clean the house weekly - didn't clean weekly, but it was always tidy
Clean door frames and doors - did main floor...still need to do upstairs and basement
Clean the wall on the staircase  - done!
Clean the ceiling fans - done!
Replace burned out light bulbs - done!
Put out fall decorations - done!
Put screens on living room windows - done!

Overall, I'm pleased with what I got done.  At the end of the month my free time was spent learning about food allergies.  But, the way I look at it, I got more accomplished by having a list and seeing what I could take care of when I did have chunks of time versus not having a list and not knowing how my free time was spent.

I think my favorite goal for the month was the challenge to drink more water.  It's something I never, ever would have focused on had I not made a conscious decision to do it.  I'll post October goals when I post my October budget, but I'll probably just try to finish up in October what wasn't done in September.  I need to think if there is anything I want to do.  I know travel plans is something that I need to work on this month.,,,

recap for september budget

We've had an unusual past 4 weeks!  It's already October 8th and I'm just now wrapping up September's books and working on the October budget.   Between my dog's knee surgery, our septic tank backing up and my son's surgery + allergies, we had several unexpected expenses in September.  BUT...luckily, we had a strong start to the month which counterbalanced our out-of-whack end of month spending! 

At the beginning of September I posted our budget for the month.  Here is how we did:

	Budget	Spent
Utilities	800	952.77
Groceries and household items	900	1194.7
Gasoline	350	130.52
Clothing	200	55
Restaurants (incld fast food/pizza)	100	118.1
Insurance	136.5	136.46
My Blow Money	100	74.84
Entmt/Rec	175	48.27
Gifts	25	70.07
Guitar lessons	100	75
Date Night	75	57.74
Haircare	100	203
Golf	75	0
Boys Commissions (Potential…)	80	43.75
Subscriptions	25	98.33
School lunches	50	0
School expenses	200	209.58
Dry Cleaning	30	8.72
Boy Scouts	147	48
Vet Bill - surgery	2300	2285
House Maintenance	0	815.31

Notes:
Gasoline - I'm certain that we spent more than this.  When Mr. Steady fills up the cars he forgets to give me the receipts.  My guess would be that we need to add $150 to this number.
Gifts - Went way over because we had 2 parties the boys were invited to this month that I hadn't expected.
Entertainment/Rec - Way under because we decided as a family not to go to a golf tournament and instead put the $ towards a different activity.
Groceries - I never got my cash for the month.  Paying with a debit card will never keep my on budget.
Subscriptions - Norton software had to get renewed this month.  Forgot about it when making the budget!
Clothes - Getting rolled over to October.  It never cooled off enough for me to buy the boys new jeans.
Haircare - I get color put on my hair every 4 weeks and this happened to be a month where I needed to go twice.  Another thing I overlooked when making the budget!
Maintenance - The septic tank needed pumping and I bought a new vacuum cleaner to help control the dog hair that my son's allergic to.

Overall, I'm happy with the numbers we had for September.  We managed to save some money and are still on track of our savings goal for the end of the year.  I've updated my sidebar to reflect it.  I need to sit down and make our budget for what remains of October, and I'll let you know tomorrow how I did on my non-financial September goals!

THANK YOU for all of our comments about my son's allergies.  I just replied to everyone in that Comments Section of the post.

september goals

I had a lot of time this weekend to think about my September goals!  I've broken them down into 4 groups:  Financial, Personal, Health, and Home.

Here they are!

FINANCIAL
Use cash  for everyday purchases
Leave my American Express and debit cards at home
Stay within my budget
Complete house refinancing

HEALTH
Lose 3 pounds and get to 142#
Track food and water intake
Drink more water...a goal of 1664 ounces total from 9/5-9/30
Exercise a total of 780 minutes from 9/5-9/30
Have 16 no wine-days from 9/5-9/30

PERSONAL
Log 10 hours (from 9/5-9/30) of Rosetta Stone Italian lessons
Finish 2010 scrapbook
Make chalkboard using foot board I purchased in the spring
Make drop cloth pillows for fall
Sew on badges to scout shirt and take picture of son
Keep up with my Bible Study homework
Finish Maine scrapbooks
Complete 2 lessons with youngest for God & Family
Read The Glass Castle
Read The Happiness Project

HOUSE
Make bed daily
Only start laundry that can be finished, folded, hung up and put away before bedtime
Clean the house weekly
Clean door frames and doors
Clean the wall on the staircase
Clean the ceiling fans
Replace burned out lightbulbs
Put out fall decorations
Put screens on living room windows

So there they are!  I want to learn how to make the side bars on my blog to keep track of the progress I'm making on my goals...both long term and short term tracking would be a nice visual!  I'll work on that this week!

hello september!

I am thrilled to be able to say GOODBYE to August.  It is one of my least favorite months.

It's hot.

It's long.

The kids start back to school (boo homework!).

There are no holidays.

But...on the bright side -- it's September now!!!  Fall is my absolute favorite season and it's the one season (except for Christmas) where I decorate my house accordingly.  Each year I tend to put out the pumpkins earlier and earlier.  You know how you go into Hobby Lobby or Michael's in July and they have their Christmas decorations/crafts displayed?  Sometimes I feel like my house is like that for the fall season.  I just get so excited!

And I may be dating myself, but do you remember growing up and getting the Back to School issue of Seventeen magazine!  Oh...it was the best!  My sister and I were always so envious of the people who lived up north and actually got to start school wearing the cute clothes that were in that issue.  Living in Texas, we didn't get to wear anything like that until November!

But - that's not what my post is supposed to be about today.  I'm just so dang happy that it's no longer August!

I challenged myself to spend waaaayyyy less money in August.  And you know what?!?  I did!  August was our 2nd lowest month for expenditures for the year.  (January was our lowest!)   I'm excited that we stayed on track and are moving in the right direction for ending the year where we want to be.

So, we're entering the last part of 2011 and I have a budget made up for our September-December expenses.  For 2011 we have a $$ number we want to reach for our savings account balance.  We are $4758 away from reaching that goal.  Luckily, for the rest of the year we don't have many unusual expenses coming our way, so we should be able to reach that number!  Also, I have about a $1500 cushion built into the budget over the next 4 months that I pray we won't have to use and can apply that to our savings and end up above our goal!!!

I need to sit down and write out my non-financial goals for the month!  I really want to be more disciplined this month with my eating, exercising, housework/chores and how I'm spending my free time!  Will share my goals with you as soon as I've thought them through!

As far as finances for the month are concerned, I don't think I've ever shared the details of our budget before and I'm a bit uncomfortable doing it (it's so revealing!!), but here it is for September!

Utilities	800
Groceries and household items	900
Gasoline	350
Clothing	200
Restaurants (incld fast food/pizza)	100
Insurance	136.5
My Blow Money	100
Entmt/Rec	175
Gifts	25
Guitar lessons	100
Date Night	75
Haircare	100
Golf	75
Boys Commissions (Potential…)	80
Subscriptions	25
School lunches	50
School expenses	200
Dry Cleaning	30
Boy Scouts	147
Vet Bill - surgery	2300

So what about you?  Are you as thrilled as I am that August is now a memory?  What are your goals for September?

my prize

Last week "SFT" over at My 101 Challenge wrote about "keeping your eye on the prize" and asked what people are willing to put their money towards.   Is it to travel?  To pay off debt?  To save up for a wedding?  Basically, what is most important to you?

I didn't have to think about it long or hard because everytime I work to stay on budget, or everytime I see money going into our retirement account I think about my "prize".

Want to know what they are?

 First, we live frugally now so that we will have money saved AND be able to cash flow college for both of our boys.  Our goal is to pay for their tuition to any college, in any state, that they would like to go (and, of course, where they are accepted).  Scholarships would be nice and if they are fortunate enough to receive them, well...that would just mean we had more money to put towards our other prizes!

After the boys are in college, Prize #2 is to live part-time in Italy.  Italy is one of our absolute favorite places...Tuscany to be more specific.  We don't want the responsibility of international home ownership, so our plan is to find a place we love that we can rent for a few months at a time.

And then none of this would be possible without Prize #3 which is Financial Freedom.  To have the kids out of college without student loans and to have our mortgage paid off would be the best prize ever.  Because that would allow us to give our money away as freely as we want and to spend our time doing what we love most.

The year 2026 is our goal date to achieve this.  Of course, I'm not sure if Mr. Steady will be ready to retire by then, but if not, it'll sure be fun knowing that the date will be just around the corner.

What about you?  What are your prizes?  Do you have a goal date for getting it? 

this is the longest month ever!

I'm trying desperately to stretch the $ that I have and make it last to the end of the month.   I got the kids signed up for basketball this weekend and paid for my son's Scout trip.  So, for the most part the money that we have left on hand can be used for groceries, gasoline and any incidentals that come us.

I have had a credit on my Amazon.com account for a couple of months and have decided to get my mother-in-laws birthday gift from there and have it shipped directly to her since shipping is free!

I have played on my tennis team for a couple of years now and it's time to sign up for the fall season.  I have been hesitant to sign up for a few different reasons.  The money was in our budget for the lessons and fees, so it wasn't the money part of it that was holding me back but more of the time commitment involved.  I decided not to play and instead take a Bible Study that my church is offering that I have wanted to take for a while -- but haven't because the class time conflicted with tennis (it's a 32 week class).  Kinda makes me question my priorities!  So by making this decision I've freed up at least one day a week and will save about $400 over the next 9 months.  The Bible Study is $42 to cover the cost of books and supplies.

I've been thinking a lot about 2012...I think because it's so dad-gum hot and I'm ready for it to be winter!  In thinking about my goals I'm finding an underlying theme in them which is DISCIPLINE.   As I focus more and consider our 2012 budget, I'm also going to think about my goals.  And if I get them all thought out sooner than later, then I may actually implement them BEFORE the New Year!  

Until then - I've got about $60 in cash and $120 in checking to last.  And guess what?!?  Our football league wants more money!  They're asking each player to donate a case of drinks to the concession stand.  I'll need to donate a case of Gatorade and a case of soft drinks...due on Thursday.    ughhhhh!!!  Luckily, it's not drink specific and I can grab what's on sale!  Wonder if they sell drinks through amazon.com and I can just have it applied to my credit?  ha, ha!!!

financial priorities - part 2

This past week I talked about a book by Kathy Peel where she challenges you to determine your financial priorities.  While I was able to answer some of her questions quickly, others took a little more thought on my part.  Below are 7 of 11 questions taken from Peel's book The Family Manager Takes Charge...along with my answers.

Action Steps to Determine Financial Priorities

1.  List five things that you value most about your life today.
Living where I do... My boys can play outside without me worrying.  They can walk 4+ miles (round trip) to the "corner store" and be perfectly safe.  And our public school doesn't know that there is a "separation between church and state".  {shhhh...don't tell}
My family.
Being healthy.
The fact that my husband is employed.
Having good friends and family who I can count on.

2.  List five things you want that money can buy.
Pot rack for my kitchen - $200
Screen door for my pantry - $250ish
Canon EF 100-400mm zoom lens - $1600
Rosetta Stone Italian - $179
Netbook computer - $500?

3.  List five things you want that money can't buy.
For my children to outlive me.
To be a good wife, mom, sister, friend, and daughter.
To slow down every now and then and just sit...or walk.  To be outside and enjoy nature.
To be healthy when I'm "old" and be able to be active with my grandchildren.
For my husband and I to enjoy our Golden Years together.

4.  How much is enough?  I feel okay about money when we have 3-6 months living expenses in the bank.  I'll be content when we have 15% of our gross income going towards retirement.

5.  Where would you like to be financially in 12 months?  In 5 years?  In 20 years?
12 months - I'd like to be saving 15% towards retirement.
5 years - To have saved at least 1 year college tuition for our boys.
20 years - I plan to have my boys through college (paid for in cash), to have our house paid off, have our retirement account funded, and to be deciding where in Italy we want to live 3-6 months out of the year once we retire (if we haven't retired already).

6.  Complete this sentence:  If I had more money, I would spend it on making & preserving memories.  Sometimes looking at what we want to spend money on and where we actually spend money can help us do some shifting without increasing the amount of money we spend.

7.  Fill in the blank:  If we suddenly found ourselves in a financial crisis, I could do without eating out and DirecTV.

So what now?  I plan on printing this out for myself and posting it in a couple of places around the house.  When I am struggling with a financial decision, I can look at my list of priorities and see if what I want to do is in line with what is important to me.  Also, for some of these things that I want & can buy, maybe - just maybe - I can find ways to save some of my "blow money" to put towards items on my Wish List.  

Feel free to link up, copy the questions and answer them on your own blog.  

financial priorities - part 1

Last week I went to the library and checked out The Family Manager Takes Charge by Kathy Peel.   I've read Kathy Peel books before and enjoy what she writes.  One section of the chapter titled "You're the Accountant" really stuck out to me.  Mainly because I feel like the " head accountant" in our family!  My husband and I work together on making and reaching our goals, but managing the day-to-day budget is in my hands.

Peel basically says that we need to determine our financial priorities.   "Unless we've made some decisions about our priorities, it's easy to lose perspective about what's really important to us and end up making impulsive decisions."  In this chapter, she lists Eleven Action Steps.  Some are questions that I've considered and answered before, and others are things that I haven't spent as much time thinking about.  Here are some of Peel's questions. 

Action Steps to Determine Financial Priorities

1.  List five things that you value most about your life today.

2.  List five things you want that money can buy.

3.  List five things you want that money can't buy.

4.  How much is enough?  I feel okay about money when we have______________ amount in the bank.  I'll be content when we have ___________________.

5.  Where would you like to be financially in 12 months?  In 5 years?  In 20 years?

6.  Complete this sentence:  If I had more money, I would spend it on ______________.  Sometimes looking at what we want to spend money on and where we actually spend money can help us do some shifting without increasing the amount of money we spend.

7.  Fill in the blank:  If we suddenly found ourselves in a financial crisis, I could do without ______________.

Feel free to link up, copy the questions and answer them on your own blog.   I'm going to put some more thought into my answers and will make a "part 2" post in a few days.

i resolve to be intentional in 2011

Do you ever feel like you're doing too much "stuff" and not getting done what (1) needs to be done and (2) what you really want to get done?  I feel like I've been in this rut for the past year.  I hate to complain too much about it because I'm doing fun things with my time, but these fun things aren't necessarily what is most important to me.  Curious?  Well...I play on a tennis team.  If you have ever played team tennis you know that it's fun AND it's competitive.  AND....it can be a bit more expensive than what one would like.  I enjoy tennis, but I've gotten to the point where it's taking up too much of my thought process.  I plan my week around lessons and matches.  If one of those days gets rained out then they have to get rescheduled.  So...something that I wanted to do (like go to the gym, go to lunch with a friend, take a walk, try out a new Farmers Market, etc.) all of a sudden gets bumped due to tennis.    You can see why I've not complained too much about this...it seems a bit petty.

Here are some things that I've neglected this past year and I'm taking a stand in 2011 to do my best to make some changes.

#1 - Our Finances - We continue to be debt-free (except for the house), which I'm very happy about.  But...we lost some momentum in saving money in 2010.  We were able to get several things accomplished (like getting our wills completed and getting the correct amount of life insurance for me and my husband), but we didn't save near as much money as what we would have liked.

So - after years of wanting to do this, I'm finally taking the Financial Peace University classes at our church.  Classes start this Sunday!  I think starting off the year with this class and having people to hold ourselves accountable to, will really help get us back on track.

#2 - My health.  I have struggled with this for the past couple of years.  My health is okay, but my weight is higher than what it should be. I need to lose 15 pounds.  We purchased an elliptical and home-gym and my goal is to exercise.  Note that I didn't say "exercise more", as I'm not really exercising at all now.  (I don't count tennis as exercise...)

I've also started going back to my Tuesday Weight Watcher meetings, and my husband and I have agreed that we need to eat more "clean foods" and drink less wine during the week.

#3 - Things that bring me peace - Often times I feel selfish doing things that clear my mind.  Whether it's taking a walk through the woods, scrapbooking, or sitting on the back deck and reading a good book.  Since I'm not being productive while doing these things, I rarely take the time to do what really makes me happy.  This year I'm changing this.  I realize that I can't do these things 100% of the time (or even most of the time) because our laundry would never be clean, the house would be a wreck and my children wouldn't ever be fed.  But still...I REALLY like to scrapbook and when I'm wanting a "break", wouldn't my time be better spent scrapbooking than playing Internet Spades on the computer?

This is enough for now.  I'll be playing less tennis in 2011, and focusing on what is truly important to me in my family.  As a result, I expect to be much more INTENTIONAL with my time.  And with that said, I'm now going to get on the elliptical for 30 minutes, as tennis was rained out today.

so what have we been up to?

This has been a year of "getting things taken care of".  In February 2009 we became debt-free, minus the mortgage.  In February 2010 we had our Emergency Fund fully funded.  We'd halted saving for retirement for 2 years as we paid off debt and saved for emergencies.  This year we started saving again for retirement.  Just 6% going to retirement...I'd like to get it to 15%.

So, what did we work on this year?  Planning for our deaths.  NOT a fun topic.  We worked on our Wills and Life Insurance policies all summer long.  It was really a downer, but something that truly needed to get done.  I really didn't know ahead of time how depressing it would be to plan these things.  For our Life Insurance policies, we're assuming that DH gets hit by a bus today and is gone.  How much is needed for us to continue as we are now?  Well, more than we realized since our children are still young.  It's always been important for us to have me be at home with the kids...this would still be important to us if DH was no longer living.  We have a wonderful advisor who really helped us come to an agreement on the size policy that we needed.

The Wills were tough too, but not quite as depressing.  It's awful to think about me and DH passing at the same time and trying to decide who would take care of our boys.  After quite a bit of praying and thinking, I think we made an absolute wonderful decision.  I pray that we never had to use our named guardian, but I certainly will feel better next time DH and I travel together without the kids.

So, while we were not as aggressive with our savings this year as I would have liked to have been, we did get some very important things taken care of.  I'm very glad that these things are done and behind us now.  And with that, I can sleep much better at night.

discussing goals with a financial advisor

We set several financial goals for this year.

1. Top off Emergency Fund(EF) with 6 months expenses
2. Save 15% towards retirement
3. Save more for both boys college expenses

We topped off the EF in February and are currently saving 6% for retirement. We have room in the budget to increase this to 15%, but haven't yet made it "official". We have $$ in the boys college account, but currently are not adding to it on a routine basis. (i.e. only birthday checks from grandparents designated for college are going into it.)

We met with a financial advisor a couple of weeks ago and he suggested a few things.

One, decrease our EF to about 3 months and put rest of that money in our retirement account. The next suggestion was to save 16-17% of our income each month for retirement to get us to our goal of what we wish to have when we retire. So, that I was pleased with...it was just about $150 more each month that I've been wanting to do. Moving onto college savings, he ran the #s on what it will probably cost for our darlings to go to in-state public school (about $120,000 for 4-years) and what it would cost to go out-of-state public school (about $220,000 for 4-years). The suggested amount to help cover the cost of this is $500/month from now until the youngest graduates in (hopefully) May of 2024. And, with the $500/month, that will cover about 1/2 of the bill.

So - We've got some things to think about. We worked so hard to get our EF to 6 months and I'm hesitant to move the money around. BUT...my husband's job is more secure now than it was when we chose to save 6 months expenses rather than a smaller amount. Next, it's more important to both me and to my husband to have our retirement savings at a comfortable amount than it is to 100% fund our kid's college expenses. We hope and pray that we can pay the majority of it for them, but they will probably need to work and pay for a lot of it themselves.

We live rather frugally and when we do "splurge" it's usually on things that will make memories, like weekend trips and vacations...not on lots of new clothes, new cars and other "toys". We could give up a lot of things and make it easier to meet our financial goals, but I'm not sure we're ready to do that at this point. We really need to sit down and take a good hard look at it.

I'm curious about you. If you are meeting all of your financial goals, is it because you've made lots of sacrifices in order to do so? And what are day-to-day things that you sacrifice to meet your goals? Just curious...

operation jiggly bits - week 4

This past week was Spring Break and as I'd hoped we had absolutely nothing planned and were without a routine all week. We went to baseball's Opening Day on Monday, had friends over, went bowling, stayed up late, slept late and pretty much loved life during the whole week!

My OJB goal was to MAINTAIN this past week and that's what I did. Absolutely no changes! NOW....8 weeks from today we make our first of two trips to the beach for the summer. Trip #1 to the beach is adults only, and Trip #2 is us with the kids. So, I'm wanting to get to around 131 pounds by Trip #1 and to my goal weight by Trip #2 (which is 129). That means it's time to get serious.

The past 3 weeks I've implemented some wonderful habits that have been part of the OJB challenge...exercising, drinking lots of water and eating lots of fruits & veggies. Now it's time for me (and hubby too!) to take it up a notch and start working for some serious results. It's not going to be easy, but according to this website, if I keep my calories around 1200 each day (I think that equates to about 24 Weight Watcher points), and have moderate exercise each day, then I "should" meet my goals. The nice thing about this time of year, is that it's FUN to grill some chicken or fish and eat lots of fresh veggies and fruits.

My goals for this week are all the same challenges....lots of water, exercise and healthy eating. I want to cut out a lot of the crap though and eliminate a few glasses of wine that I'm drinking throughout the week. My goal this week is to end the day at 24 WW points. I'm going to allow myself to "eat" my Activity Points. If I don't see progress quickly enough, then I'll probably change my mind about that!

Here are my numbers showing Original, and...This Week:

weight: 142...142

Chest: 37.5...36.75
Waist: 31.5..31.0
@belly button: 34.5...33
hips: 39...38.75
thighs: 22.33...21.75
arms: 12 1/4...12

february recap

One reason I love February is because it's a short month and easy to stick to the budget. This is our 2nd month with the budget and it's getting easier to plan ahead and stick to the plan.

We went over in a few areas, but still stayed within the overall spending limit.

The grocery budget seems to be a biggie with everyone and we all try to figure how to save in this area. Right? Well, this month with groceries we did great! Spent $426.19 (our goal is $600/month, but since I went over $700 in January, I cut back for February). Spent $426.19 and Saved $281.70 (40%) using coupons and watching sales.

Roadtrip - Spent more than I expected at $690...had budgeted $450.

For March - My goal is to tuck away $1000 for our summer trip and an additional 9%ish towards retirement savings. Since the weather is turning nicer, I've got some golf play added into the budget along with some Easter shirts, shoes for my little one and Easter dress for me. Even though our grocery budget is set at $600/month, I'm challenging myself to $550. OH...and I'm at a $0 budget for restaurants because that's what I gave up for Lent.

CASH update. February was our first month on the cash/envelope system. We've tried it before but always give up after doing it a month. It really worked and I'm going to do it again for March.

February was a good month and looking at other blogger reports, it looks like it was good for others as well. I'm looking forward to having March as another good month!

lent

What did I give up for lent this year? Restaurants & Fast Food. Six weeks no restaurants...should save about $100+ and hopefully will help in my quest to lose some weight!

february goals

Goals for February (taken from my 210 things to do list...)

Write weekly letters to my grandmother
Send pictures to the grandparents
Send a letter to my niece in college Done 2-22
Call out-of-state friends every other week
Go to see family during our Winter Break - Done 2/14 week
Make a fuss over Valentine's Day - Done 2-13
Take boys for well visits to new Doctor - Done
I need to go for my well visit - test for gluten intolerance - Done 2-22
Sort through pictures and artwork to decide what to frame
Buy frames for pictures above and hang them up on the walls
Top off Emergency Fund for 6 months saved expenses
check credit reports and credit scores - Done 2/22
close boys out of state bank account
open accounts locally for both boys
organize and purge Favorite Recipes - Done 2/8
organize cabinet above dishwasher
laundry room - organize - Done 2/21
coat closet - organize
move photos on computer downstairs to a memory stick
research prices for new kitchen (energy efficent) appliances
Can we get the sirius to work inside our house?
renew passport
start my bucket list
Update Christmas card list and addresses
Determine who to send 2010 cards to…need to send DH's great aunt/uncle