Spring Goals Outsprung
July 7th, 2009 by zpetals
The other day, I was reviewing my goals from this spring, and how I didn’t reach them. I wanted to have $2500 in our emergency savings and have CC#1 paid off by June 1. Neither of those things happened.
Rather, I ended up with $2200 in our emergency savings, which is great, but now have to pull out some of that because our kitty is sick and we need to get a sensor fixed on our car. Life happens.
CC#1 is at $3834.24, which is definitely lower but not paid off.
However, this spring, I paid off a special assessment at our condo building of $1200, paid off two small medical bills totaling $1000, paid half of what we owe my brother, and paid numerous small bills as well as vet bills for kitty. I also sent money to my Roth IRA, which I hadn’t done since October. So I could have paid off CC#1 and had the other $300 in ES, but made other choices with our money; I don’t feel horribly bad about this, but wish I had rewritten my “set” goals as they changed, mid-spring.
So, where to go from here? I need to sit down with the files and the computer and spend an afternoon during naptime to figure out and set new goals for the second half of the year. I need to update the numbers page, and get those goals and pay-off dates (and savings dates) set so that I can have a little more peace of mind.
An immediate goal for me is to pay the remaining amount to my brother, so that debt is gone before Labor Day Weekend. I think that debt weighs more on me emotionally, so I need it to be gone.
I’ll do my re-evaluation next week; this Thursday, I head out of town for my annual Girls’ Weekend. Every year, the three of us get together at one of our houses, and eat and drink and giggle and essentially just recharge our collective batteries. It’s pretty great. And it’s also something that the three of us tend to squirrel money away all year for; my friend BechemelGirl has a coffee mug high on a shelf in her kitchen where she tosses change and dollar bills in over the course of the year.
It reminds me of the beginning of UP, where the man and his wife have the jar of coins that they are hoping to spend on a trip to the Amazon. They end up having to break the jar often, as life happens.
BechemelGirl actually re-hid her stash after her husband found it, and now she cannot find it herself; I think that’s funny (it won’t stop her from coming but will drive her nuts looking for it).
Life happens.
Tags: debt reduction, life, patience
Posted in budgeting, creativity, patience | Comments (0)
Life, Etc.
June 29th, 2009 by zpetals
Two months ago, I added my last post here at zpetals.com. Unfortunately, since then, I’ve not had time to write anything, let alone post anything.
I shouldn’t say that, exactly. I should say that I haven’t chosen to use my time to post anything. I’ve been spending all naptimes and ‘free time’ (such as it is) either cleaning things out, running, or watching Law and Order SVU episodes streaming on Netflix. Sometimes a girl needs a mental break.
Lately, things have been going a little crazy. One of the places I work is becoming difficult, politically. I haven’t been too bothered by it, but other friends have had things happen to them as a result of the recent upset, and I’m trying to keep an open mind and heart where it’s concerned; I’ve been thinking lately that I’ll be needing, in the next few months, to figure out what the next steps of my life should be, and where those steps will take me.
So. Soon, very very soon, I’ll be writing a bit for this blog and for my Huge Writing Project (I’ve promised myself and one of my running partners that I’ll have written ten more pages of my HWP by this Thursday….) I do have things I’d like to say regarding our personal finance goals, really.
Tags: life, patience, reassessment
Posted in creativity, goals, patience | Comments (0)
Paring Down
April 27th, 2009 by zpetals
I’m so excited!
The other day, I emptied out our gorgeous quarter-sawn oak china cabinet (full of books) and took a picture of it. For a while now, I’ve been wanting to either sell it or put it in storage, as we had two large pieces of furniture in our living/dining area that were kind of making it seem smaller than it is. I am in a mindset right now of getting rid of things (perhaps it’s spring cleaning?) and paring down belongings and repairing what needs repair.
This cabinet in particular has an interesting story: it was in pieces in my parents’ attic for years upon years, until CarpenterBoy and I moved from a small town to the Big City 11 ½ years ago. They gave it to us, to put back together and use as storage. CarpenterBoy did a wonderful job piecing it together and got the glass for cheap, so since then, it’s been holding books.
CarpenterBoy said he didn’t mind if we sold it, but I had to call my parents to ask them if they wanted it back; finally, on Thursday, I remembered to ask my mom when we were on the phone (I kept forgetting to ask her that). And she said neither of them minded (but wouldn’t I rather just GIVE it to my sister—who also has too much furniture—instead? No, mom, then I wouldn’t get money for it, which is also nice to have….)
So I cleaned it out, rearranged all of the books on our built-in bookshelf, and we took pictures of the oak cabinet. I wanted to send the offer to friends and family first, then wait a few days and put it on Craigslist. And today, one of our friends said she wanted it! It’s going to a great home, we’ll have an extra snowflake to send to our emergency fund and to CC#1, and I’ll have a little more air in our living room!
Now, to find other things to sell and pare down some more!!
Tags: cleaning out, snowflakes
Posted in patience, snowflakes | Comments (0)
Emergency Trips and Money
April 6th, 2009 by zpetals
We had to run down to CarpenterBoy’s hometown last week, when his father had another stroke; I got the call when I was teaching and rushed home, and we got things together for the normally 6 hour drive (that took us 8 hours that day). We had to rent a car and cancel a LOT of things that were on the schedule last week, but made it to visit with his family and sit at the hospital in the ICU waiting room for three days. His dad is okay now, and seems to be getting through this health issue. We won’t know for a few weeks what the mental damage is, but so far, he’s healing physically just fine.
All this running around and missing out on a few volunteer and paid gigs and having to rent a car and having to spend money eating at the hospital rather than home/leftovers has taken a crunch out of our money situation; I had intended to work through a few things last week, and send a big chunk to both savings and CC#1, but haven’t even had time since we returned on Friday to get to the financial stuff. I’m hoping to do that today when Bean naps.
All in all, I think we’ll be okay, but the trip will throw a small wrench in the plans to snowflake some of the money we were paid last week. That’s okay, though. I just have to be all calm and zen about it—it’s life. Things happen. Plans can be adjusted when necessary.
Tags: budgeting, emergency, family
Posted in CarpenterBoy, budgeting, patience | Comments (0)
Stuck in a Rut
March 23rd, 2009 by zpetals
Lately, I haven’t had any time to work on this blog, and haven’t had much time or inclination to work on our financial goals. Sure, I’ve paid things on time, even way in advance of due dates (I’m trying to get at least a month ahead rather than living paycheck to paycheck) but, for the most part, I’ve not put much time or effort into it. I have been so busy with teaching and workshops and the Bean that I’ve sort of placed this blog and the financial goals off to the side.
That’s not to say I don’t think about it a lot of the time. I tend to worry a great deal about money, and about how/when we’re going to pay things off, and about money coming in and going out.
And lately, it seems like there’s always some obstacle or surprise standing in our way. Something was wrong with the brakes on Car#1 and CarpenterBoy fixed them last week, only to find out that something more intense is wrong with the rotors on the brakes. He’s got to fix that, now. I’m lucky in that he’s able to work on these things and to fix these things wrong with the car, but it’s still got me stressed as to how much money the parts will cost us, and how it will take him away from the work he needs to do in his cabinetry shop.
I have several subaccounts at ING—and send money each month to the vacation fund and the holiday fund—but I don’t have one for car repair and issues. I probably should. I don’t know if I can squeeze any more money out of our budget, though. I’m having a hard time right now as it is. It would be so much better—it will be so much better—once the $700 we send each month to credit cards is done and going into OUR coffers again.
I know that what I need to do is take deep breaths and remind myself of the big picture here. The financial goals we’ve set, the things we need to take care of so later we can be more secure–those are the things I need to keep my eyes on. The prize of financial freedom is what I need to keep my eyes focused on.
Deep breaths.
Tags: budgeting, car repairs, patience
Posted in CarpenterBoy, budgeting, goals, patience | Comments (0)
Numbers Updated
March 16th, 2009 by zpetals
In the effort to get things rolling (again) here, I’ve updated my numbers page. There are a few things happening in the next couple days, such as a huge snowflake to CC#1 ($450) and some transfers to savings, so the numbers will change slightly by this weekend.
I was pleased to note that our net worth went up by over $1000 since mid-January, partly due to paying most of the pediatrician and hospital bills, and due to me being more diligent in my goal to save money and pay down debt.
Go, me!!
Tags: financial goals, net worth, numbers
Posted in debt reduction, debt snowball, numbers, patience | Comments (0)
Time in a Bottle
March 16th, 2009 by zpetals
So, I haven’t had much time lately to do much besides work and sleep. Today, though, the Bean is sick and we are at home; in a few minutes, he’s going to take a nap and I’m going to have a window of time to update the Numbers page. I’m also hoping to be able to spend a few minutes writing something else, as I haven’t had time for that lately!
Posted in bean, goals, numbers | Comments (0)
Paychecks, paychecks.
February 26th, 2009 by zpetals
I’m pretty excited. I just ran some numbers in regards to tomorrow’s paychecks (mine) and next week’s paychecks (my husband’s), and it’s definitely going to be a good few days for getting our financial balls rolling again.
As I stated before, February has been an odd, hard month for us; I wasn’t paid at all in January (due to semester breaks), and CarpenterBoy’s business was slowly picking up new clients, but money wasn’t flowing in. He was going to a lot of meetings, drawing a lot of plans, and starting new projects, but deposits on these new projects have been slow coming in. So we haven’t had a lot (any, really) of money in the ZPetals coffers. I had to draw from our emergency savings to pay our mortgage and some bills, and we are a tad bit behind on both our regular bills and our financial goals for the spring.
But, that’s okay. We’re finally seeing some money coming in, starting tomorrow, and I can split and separate and send that money out to where it needs to go. I’ll be able to ‘catch up’ (I hate that phrase!) on bills and get a jump on next month’s bills, which is always nice. I’ll be able to pay back our emergency fund (with 10% extra added, as ‘interest’ on the ‘loan’), and I’ll be able to send a bit of extra money to the fund. I’ll also be able to chunk a snowflake towards CC#1, getting that one closer to payoff date of June 1.
I also feel a bit more like I might be able to breathe for the next week or so. I might be able to get a little bit of sleep. I feel like I’ve been holding my breath the entire month of February, and tomorrow, I can finally let out a deep sigh.
Tomorrow afternoon, while Bean naps, I’m going to take out the Filebox, and write out bills. I’m going to transfer money online, and pay some bills online. I’m going to raise a glass to deep breaths and to working hard and to being patient. I’m going to forge ahead.
It will feel really, really good.
Tags: breathing, budgeting, paychecks
Posted in CarpenterBoy, budgeting, creativity, debt reduction, numbers, patience, snowball | Comments (1)
Spent 2.22
February 22nd, 2009 by zpetals
29.62 groceries.
29.62 total.
2200.32 month total.
Tags: budgeting, tracking spending
Posted in budgeting, tracking spending | Comments (0)
Spent 2.21
February 22nd, 2009 by zpetals
Absolutely nothing.
Tags: budgeting, tracking spending
Posted in budgeting, tracking spending | Comments (0)