Revised Financial & Life Goals, 2011 edition

I'm not one for setting resolutions for the New Year, largely due to the fact that I think goals and resolutions should be made and revised all year long, not just once a year.  So that being said, it's been a couple months since I last reviewed and revised my goals.  Time for a checkup.

Most of the time I don't put a real time frame on my goals.  I know what ones I would like to meet first, but beyond that, I try not to set specific dates.  I find that too often life gets in the way of hard dates and that I generally feel frustrated and annoyed that I couldn't meet my goal deadline.  So here's a list of my previous goals and their progress, and any revisions for the immediate future.

Debt Reduction-Credit Cards

Pay off Bank of America Card, balance about $1200.-CHECK, Paid this account off for a reduced amount of $1000 in the fall.  Used a retirement loan at 4% interest to do it, but that beats 20%+ interest any day.  And if something happens and I cannot repay my retirement loan, there's no late fees, it just gets reported as income to the IRS.  Not ideal, but no accumulation of fees and charges to make matters worse over time.

Pay off MBNA America Card, most recent balance about $3000.-CHECK, paid this one off with my tax return this month.  That leaves me CREDIT CARD FREE!!!  All credit cards paid and closed!  YAY!!!!!

Debt Reduction-Medical Bills

The birth of my daughter left me with quite a few medical bills, first for the OB, then the hospital for the birth, and then the NICU stay because she was a month early and need a little help along.

As of this month, the OB is paid up.  YAY!  One down.

I only owe about $180 for my hospital stay and the birth, which I hope to pay off in the next month of so.  Yay!  Almost two down.

And I have about $1400 for Jess's NICU left.  I suppose I still have a ways to go there, but with the OB paid, the birth almost paid off, this should start to move more quickly.

Unfortunately, I'll have to add hospital bills for Justin's heart attack in September, about $5000.  Thankfully he's still alive and kicking and feeling better overall, so I can't complain about more bills if they keep him with us longer. :)

Debt Reduction-Retirement Loans

I have a few of these from little emergencies here and there.  I paid off one in the fall, but replaced it with another to pay off my Bank of American account.  So no major progress there except the lowering of an interest rate (which is actually really helpful in the long run).

I've paid down another to about $200 and hope to pay it off next month unless something comes up.  So there's some progress.  The rest aren't a huge priority yet as I have a car loan still with a higher interest that I would like to get paid off a little faster.  The goal though is to have most of these paid off by the end of 2012.

Debt Reduction-Car Loan

Well, as of this month I have just over $6000 left on my car loan.  I get going back and forth on making this a priority and throwing all my extra payments into it alone (it is the higher interest rate), or paying off my retirement loans faster (still have several of this with smaller balances that would be easy to have paid off by the end of 2012).  The car's maturity date is 2013, so I'm not saving nearly as much interest on it for making the bigger payments as I would have when I bought it.  So I'm leaning more towards focusing on the smaller retirement loans and my savings (both of which can be liquidated for an emergency easier than my car, and would be worth more than my car in the long run).  That being said, I would really like to trade in my car (a 2005 Monte Carlo-2 door nightmare) for something a little more family friendly (something with 4 doors preferably, like station wagon or maybe a van).  Not sure how that's going to affect things.  If I can put back a couple thousand in savings, I might be able to buy a used older model family car outright, but that's still going to leave me with added insurance costs... so I see me waiting until I've at least paid off the retirement loans or the Monte Carlo so the extra insurance payment isn't likely to destroy my debt reduction goals.

Debt Reduction-Student Loans

These are the largest chunk of my debt.  These have been placed on Income Based Repayment in order to help me pay off my other debts.  Income Based Repayment is a program from Federal Student Aid.  It's a great help for those with Federal Students Loans who, like me, have chosen career paths that aren't as glamorous or wealthy, or those, like me, who hit on hard times and need a little help, but don't want to keep deferring their student loans constantly.  Once you've been accepted (which is a simple process done mostly over the phone, with a few documents faxed or mailed in) your tax information will be automatically sent to the Federal Student Aid office so that they can determine each year what your payment will be.

Additionally, I'm hoping to stay in my current or similar job situation where I fall under the Public Employee category.  By making my IBR payments on time for ten years (not missing ANY payments) I can apply for the Public Employee Loan Forgiveness program.  This means, that as a state employee, teacher, federal employee, etc... you may be able to have your loans forgiven, that's right FORGIVEN, after 120 consecutive payments.  By combing these two programs, I hope to have my loans taken care of in about 9 more years.  The trick is, I have to be a public employee for that entire time.  Not likely a problem, as I don't see myself being able to quit working before then, and I don't see myself leaving the type of public servant job that would qualify me for forgiveness later.  So, it's a bit of a gamble, lower payments now, that may not meet my interest each month and thus extend my payments considerably (though they will still qualify for forgiveness after 25 years on the IBR plan, and with other payments out of the way, I can always pay more each month), or maybe get lucky and only have to pay a fraction of my student loans as a reward for public service (even easier if I joined Americorps or the Peace Corp).

Live More Simply-Embrace Frugality More

This goal is more recent.  Just here in the last couple years.  I've never been one for a lot of extravagance, but that doesn't mean I'm above wastefulness.  :(  So I've been trying to live more simply, more frugally, and more mindfully.  This partly goes hand in hand with the desire to become debt free, as frugality is a GREAT way to cut costs and pay bills off faster.  But in all honesty frugality and mindfulness as more than just a way to save money.  By being more mindful of my purchases I can be more aware of their impact on my life, on my family, on the community, and the environment.

Ultimately, I hope that simple living will help me become more self reliant, more focused on my family than my things, more aware of how my purchases affect my local economy and the environment.  Right now, I know I'm still purchasing things that are chosen more for their convenience and price than for their quality and such, a matter than falls under both necessary evil and annoyance for me.  But as I repay my debts, learn to live below my means (something I think has become a foreign concept for most of America), and become more self reliant (growing some of my own food, sewing and repairing my clothes instead of just buying new ones, taking care of what I own)... I hope that I will move more toward mindful purchasing in the future.

Already, I am starting to avoid purchasing cheaper, low quality clothing, and trying to purchase one or two strong, quality items that will last me a long time and will meet many needs.  I'm watching Goodwill and thrift stores more for quality used clothing that's still cheaply priced.  This speaks to my desire to improve my environment my reusing and recycling clothing that people might otherwise have just thrown away. 

Live More Simply-Declutter

Lately I've been looking around our space and wondering if we really NEED everything we've crammed into it.  With Netflix, do we really NEED to keep a collection of hundreds of DVDs when we can just as easily stream most of them online?  Probably not.  Are there movies worth keeping?  Sure.  I will likely keep a BluRay set of the Harry Potter films, our Monty Python DVD boxed set and a few favorites that we love, but I really would like to cut our collection to 50 or less.  The rest I would like to try to sell first in a yard sale, $1 a piece.  Those that don't sell will either be donated to our local library, giving us continued access to them, and giving us the chance to write them off our taxes as a charitable donation.  Part of me is tempted to just write them off, though a little extra cash to put back now would be nice too, and the fact that we get a return pretty much every year means we're already paying more than we need to, so a write off isn't going to be that big of a deal for us.

Same goes for books.  We both have Kindles now, so for future book purchases I would like to stick with Kindle editions.  As for the books we already own, I'd like to really look at them, decided on which ones we most want to keep, and start purchasing Kindle versions of them as we can.  Cutting our DVD and book collections alone will create an exceptional amount of space in our rather small home.  Books will likely go to the library.  They just don't sell that well in yard sales and I really like the idea of sharing them with lots of people.

Clothing has already started to be purged.  Things we don't wear or that no longer fit us have largely been boxed away and are awaiting a run to Goodwill.  A few old band shirts of Justin's have been held back for a t-shirt quilt.  The hope is that I will take the time to get this done so that Justin gets to keep his treasured shirts in a useful way instead of donating them or throwing them out.  Here's me crossing my fingers that they don't just sit around the house.  :)  I do tend to collect "projects" from time to time.  I don't mind it when I get progress on them, but I hate having them lie around indefinitely.  I'm already working on a Blue Jean quilt and rug with lots of little hand embroidered blocks... so cross your fingers the t-shirt quilt doesn't get "lost".

There's still plenty of decluttering to do.  I would like to sell off extra furniture, look into purchasing shelves for the kitchen for food storage, and I'd like to rearrange some of the rooms to make more efficient use or our space.

Savings

Savings has never been a strength of mine.  Once I get a good sized sum of money, I can usually avoid spending it quickly, but as for really "putting back" money, I've never succeeded in saving much at a time.  Generally, that's been due to unexpected expenses here and there that eat away at my savings before it gets very far, but to be honest that's not terrible.  At least they are keeping me from further debt in that case.  But ideally, I would like to save back a couple thousand dollars for emergencies, enough to buy a second car once other things are paid off, and eventually enough to buy some property and a home (nothing special, but a nice little place to call our own).  I hope to buy the second car, acreage and house with cash, or at least be able to put half down on them and pay them off before any other major purchases.  After that I want to put back as much into savings for retirement as possible, as well as possibly helping us start our own business.

Health

With our recent scare in September with Justin's heart attack, both of our cholesterol scores being high and the addition of our daughter to our daily lives, I'd really like to see us get into better shape.  Personally, I'd like to lose about a 100 lbs or more (something I haven't gotten any headway on since September when I made the goal), and get back into trail running shape and start hiking more often.  We had hoped to be able to go hiking together at least once a month, but that hasn't worked out with the recent weather and our lack of a dedicated babysitter option.  Right now, we're lucky to walk outside without freezing our toes off... lol, and cold temperatures with heart problems aren't a good combination.  So for now, we're in a holding pattern.  Hopefully as the weather improves (crossing my fingers) we will be able to at least start walking around town more on our days off.  I also want to talk to my doctor about checking out my risk for heart disease since Justin's heart attack nearly scared me to death, I'm overweight, and I have a family history.  Let's just say, that I'm more cautious of my health of late, and I'd really like to avoid a surprise like we had in September.

We had hoped to take a hiking trip this spring if we lowered our cholesterol numbers (CHECK) and got in better shape (not quite there yet), so that trip's up in the air still.  We had successfully hiked 8 miles back in October or November, so I guess I'm not as out of shape as I look, but I'd like to be able to do that hike in half the time and with less effort.  Eventually I would like to try short trips along the Appalachian Trail. 

To help our health, we've already moved to all whole grain breads, lean meats, and increased veggies.  I'd like to cut back our portions more, and of course get more exercise, and I think as things progress we'll come up with more things to improve upon.  I am concerned that my current working/childcare situation is creating unneeded strain both mentally and physically for both of us, though I can only fully speak for myself, and this is something that is going to have to be dealt with soon to avoid more serious health issues.

To Wrap Up

Well, that's about it for my goals review and revision.  We're a little closer to being debt free.  We've got a lot of work to do to get completely debt free, and to save back for our future.  Our health could use a lot of work still... both with weight management and knowing where our health stands to help us avoid "surprises".  We're cutting back on our stuff and trying to make more room for living and worrying less about making room for stuff.  We're staying about as social as ever (neither of us are real social animals), though we may want to change things up in the future, especially if improving our health improves our energy levels.  I really am going to HAVE to find a daycare/babysitting situation that doesn't have me working a slightly different schedule each week and working myself stupid all the time.  I think this is having a HUGE impact on my immediate mental and physical health, so we will have to renew our search for quality, inexpensive daycare, even if for only 1-2 days a week.  I would rather stay home full time with my daughter, but I've committed myself to paying off my debts, not just for me, but as an example and lesson for my children, so that they don't see me walking out on my debts and responsibilities, especially just to make life easier.  There's a big difference between making like BETTER and making it easier.  I want a BETTER life for me and my family.  A life where our debts are paid and we aren't owned by our impulses, enslaved by our stuff, and always waiting for the lottery to give us a break.  I want to teach them how to do for themselves so they don't have to wait on someone else to have the time to do it for them or to be able to afford to have someone do it for them.  I don't care if they choose to NOT go to college, because if I teach them to be life long learners they'll have all they need to keep learning and be their own teacher.

As a treat for the progress we've made overall, I'm buying us new hiking shoes, and trying to work out a short vacation with my brother and parents.  And that's about it.  Time to take a step back, continue working on my goals and to check back again in a couple months to see where we're at.

If you've got any goals you'd like to share, either successes you've already met or things you're working toward for the future (there really isn't much in the way of failing our goals, we postpone them, but as long as we're still breathing, our goals are fluid things that can be reached or revised, but rarely failed), post them in the comments below.  I wish you all a blessed life.

Struggling through... and finally seeing a little progress

Do you ever have days, weeks and months even, where it feels like you're not so much walking through your day as much as plodding through vast amounts of mud trying to reach your goals?  You know the days where you find yourself exhausted just thinking about your goals, let alone actually working toward them.  Over the last couple months I've been in the mud flats so to speak, struggling to keep the strength to keep moving forward on my goals... goals to make my life simpler, to get my debts paid and gone, to get my home more organized, and so on.  Thankfully despite having to drag myself through the mud of doubts and obstacles, I'm making progress.  In a month I will pay off my LAST credit card.  Completely paid and gone.  And trust me, I've no plans to ever bother with that scam again.  Over the last 10-15 years, I've come to the conclusion that the credit industry is one of the worst industries in our country.  Credit has become so easy to get, that hundreds of thousands of young people are starting their colleges careers with more and more debt.  College itself isn't cheap, and without credit, it's not accessible by the majority of American youth, but to add credit card debt with it's ridiculously high interest rates on top of college loans... well, it's no wonder our economy is having issues.

Anyhow, it was this realization (some ten years ago... oh has it really been that long), that got me to first set the goal of getting myself out of debt.  I, like the rest of the herd, started college and picked up a handful of easy to get credit cards.  Visa, Mastercard, Sears, Lane Bryant, Walmart, Value City, Dell... so many little pieces of plastic and that little tiny minimum payment... recipe for disaster 99% of the time.  Anyhow, since I first set on the goal of becoming debt free I've paid off around $15,000 in credit debt.  This next payment (which will include a large portion of my tax return, again) will pay off the last credit card I have.  It's been a slow process, filled with struggles between low student incomes, having grocery money, keeping up utilities and all the little and big disasters that make life "interesting".

So I'm happy to hit this milestone.  It leaves me with my car to pay off next... not too bad, a couple of retirement loans with wonderfully low interest rates, and my student loans... a mountain that has been chipped at as best I can while trying to get rid of the nastier high interest debts.  Here's to trudging forward through the mud, hoping for a few sections of easy effort from time to time, and eventually meeting my goals one at a time.

2010 in Review... or what led me to start this blog

Well, we're half way through November, Christmas has been peaking around the aisles of stores since sometime in October, and fall here in West Virginia has been in full swing for quite a while with its gentle reminders that winter isn't far away.  While I've got a moment, finishing my lunch at work and trying to take a moment or two to myself, I'd like to take account of 2010, to give myself a reminder of where I've been and how far I've come as well as give my potential readers a glimpse at what's been happening in my life.

Let's start back a little further, with a month of happy announcements, August 2009.  At that time my partner and I had been trying to get pregnant for a couple months, his son was visiting us from Pennsylvania, and we were just getting ready to make preparations for the long drive back to drop him home with his mom when we were blessed with the news that they would be moving to West Virginia.  Even better, they were hoping to move to our town.  This was WONDERFUL news for us.  When my partner and his ex had split a few years earlier, she had taken a job promotion in Florida.  This made it pretty much impossible, due to financial constraints, to visit his son.  So for a year, until they chose to move north again and settled in Pennsylvania, we had to be content with phone calls and shipping gifts through the mail.  The thought of being able to see him practically whenever we wanted was just... freaking AWESOME.  :)  But good news doesn't mean there won't be stresses... so we soon realized that until they found jobs and a place of they're own they would have to stay with us.  Now, as far as ex's go, we all have a pretty good relationship.  We don't always agree on things, but we all get on well enough and we didn't have much difficulty past the simple notion that we were adding four people, 2 children and 2 adults (one of which was pregnant) to our rather small home.  Mind you, we're not living in a "tiny" house (check out the Tiny House Blog for true tiny houses), but we were still living in roughly a thousand square foot space... a thousand square feet of oddly arranged space at that... old, oddly arranged space.  So our tiny back bedroom/storage room had to be emptied and set up as bedroom for my stepson and his half sister.  The middle bedroom that he had been using had to be emptied out and arranged into a temporary bedroom (which included a mattress on the floor), our dining was already our master bedroom because it is the only room in the house big enough to hold a queen size bed with any walk around space, and all that extra stuff had to either be sold, given away or somehow find a place in the rest of the house.

During this time, some bills had to be put on the back burner to allow for the added utility usage of an extra four people, as well as added grocery bills and the like.  Privacy was an illusion supported by curtains hung in the doorways (we have a whooping two interior doors... one for the back bedroom and one for the bathroom), and quiet... while quiet never exists where more than two people are gathered anyhow, unless they're sleeping and not always then.  We adjusted as best we could, content in the reality that our son would be close to us for the first time in years.  And it wasn't long after our company arrived that we were blessed with the news that we were pregnant!  So our home of two became a home of six with two expecting mothers, two children (nine and two), and two bewildered dads.  Exciting isn't it.  :)  I'm sure somewhere someone is thinking about making that scenario into some kind of reality TV.

Anyhow, our company eventually moved out after a couple of months.  They were able to find a place of their own not far from us, and we get to see our little man (now nine years old) almost every weekend unless we're stuck working.  The rest of 2009 was more quiet.  We watched my belly swell, visited our son's mom and new half sister when she arrived, and started to catch up on the bills that had fallen behind.  By January or February we had caught up on our bills and were finally able to start paying a little extra here and there to help us get out of debt.  Sometime around there I started making a more concerted effort on getting us debt free.  I began keeping an Excel calendar/check register to keep track of expenses and budget ahead.  It's been an invaluable tool for me.  It's allowed me to really see what I have and what I'll need as the month goes by.  I also downloaded an Excel debt calculator that I think I found on Mint, but I'm not positive these days.  The calculator has been a great help as well since it helps me to visualize just when I will be able to get my debts paid off and allows me to change payment amounts so that I can keep a fairly accurate track of extra payments and such.  If you're interested in seeing either of these let me know I will try to make them download-able.  

In April, my daughter decided to make her arrival, 4 weeks early.  We spent a week in the NICU to let her lungs catch up a bit and get her oxygen levels up and her jaundice down, but despite all that we had ourselves a beautiful baby girl.  We both took some time off to enjoy this precious bundle of joy, to get used to having a tiny new person around and to share time with our families.  This was all old news for my partner who had gone through all the ups and downs of pregnancy and having a new baby in the house before, so he was a huge help to me.  He was extremely supportive and still is.  I must say, he is one of the brightest blessings I've had in my life.  

Despite the disruption in my sleep, the changes to our lifestyle and to my own body, and the fun of healing from a cesarean, it was the return to work that was my hardest adjustment for me to motherhood.  I've always preferred to do a good job at whatever I've done, to take my time and do things right, instead of rushing to do more at once and none of it well.  I was already feeling annoyance at not being able to keep my home as neat and clean as I'd like because I was coming home from work so tired, then add in a new baby... and you have someone desperately seeking a balance in they're working life and their home life.  My return to the workforce just six weeks after my daughter's birth had me feeling conflicted over not being able to care for my daughter full time, being distracted at work, and being too tired when I got home to wash all the dishes, or cook.  It's no wonder that my hope to breast feed dried up... I was so tired and stressed out that my body wasn't going to let me try to add milk production to the list. 

But slowly I've adjusted to the need to be a little bit of everything.  I'm not happy about it and I still struggle more on some days than others, but I'm working and providing and doing without rest when I have to so that I can keep working or play with my daughter or get the house cleaned up while the rest of the house is sleeping.  Trying to eat healthy was hard, but essential.  My partner and I had both come up with Cholesterol issues and he had added blood pressure problems.  But all the healthier eating and changes to our lifestyles (increased outdoor activities, cutting budgets to pay off debts and reduce stress) couldn't prepare us for September.  

On the 20th of September I got a text message from my partner.  He was having chest pains and was being taken to the hospital.  Chest pains, numbness and tingling in his limbs, sweating buckets, dizzy... not good.  I called my mom, had her take the baby and I picked up our car from his workplace.  I still made it back to the hospital shortly after he arrived at the ER.  He wasn't even in a room yet.  It was about 6:30 by then... we were placed in a tier two room and we waited, and waited, and waited.  He didn't want me to call anyone and worry them, but I at least Facebooked that we were at the ER and ask for prayers from our friends and family, I was too worried myself not too.  About 2am we finally got the confirmation that he had indeed had a heart attack or acute mitochondrial infarction... his blood work had confirmed what the EKG had been too late to see.  By 5am we were admitted and in a room, around 7am we had a little breakfast and I started making phone calls, by 9am they were taking him back for a cath and shortly after I was told he had three major blockages over 90% and another over 70%.  They would put stints in the three worst arteries and we would wait on the last.  I was too shocked to ask why.  By 11am he was recovering in the ICU and I was catching family up on what was happening and where we were.  It was surreal.  He's 31 folks, he just turned 31 in August... we had just had a baby in April... we were eating better and exercising more... and THIS was not supposed to be happening.  We were in shock.  He had a family history of heart disease but we never imagined that it would manifest so young.  In all honesty we were really quite lucky, despite three major blockages, his attack had caused no muscular damage to the heart.  With the stints, blood thinners and a continued push to eat healthier and be more active he should be fine.

The heart attack had taken him out of work for month, but thankfully our hard work at cutting our expenses and paying off our debts had paid off and gave us some wiggle room.  The kindness of friends and family helped even more.  It's been an eventful and somewhat trying year.  Things have changed and will continue to change, with and without our help I'm sure... and I'm hoping that we can guide our changes in the directions we'd like them to go, that we will continue to move forward with our debt reduction and hopes to get into a newer home that we can own out right (it won't be anything crazy, but it will be sufficient and the desire to own it out right instead of owning a mortgage is so strong for me it's pretty much become essential), and that eventually we can continue simplifying our lives and home and making it a greener and more peaceful place for us all.