February Redux

Month Two of 2009 down, and a ton of progress made - what an exciting month!

February:
No-Spend Days: 18/21
No Eating Out Days: 25/24
Extra Income: $45 ($35 gc for rx transfer, $10 gc from surveys)
Money Into Savings: $1,000.59
Debt Paid Off: $687.04
Retirement Savings: $1,273.45 (really!)
Other Money Spent: $376.74
Workout Days: 9
Books Finished: 3
Times Flossed: 4 (that’s a 100% increase, ha ha!)
Letters/Cards/Contacts: 3

Progress on 2009 Goals:

• continuing to reduce my Bank of Mom debt (turtling for now to rebuild savings/EF)
• have kept my amazon.com card paid off each month - monthly goal met!
• kept my credit union savings/checking account balances above $750 in each account to take advantage of the special rate - goal MET!
• new goal added: saved $100 and started another new account at Sterling Savings Bank (which will get me a $101 bonus in 3 months) – goal MET!
• met all of the monthly requirements for my Checking ++ account to earn 5.00% APY – monthly goal MET!
• Saved $1,000 and started a Roth at Vanguard. Also rolled my current Roth money out of my broker account. (This was a big goal met for me, although on my actual goal sheet it says to max out as much of it as I can by April 15.. so I guess we have to wait on that part still!)
• continued contributing to my SIMPLE IRA (w/matching)
• kept my "Little EF" above $1,000
• continued contributing to my "Big EF" (although I probably will be taking some out of it to keep working on that Roth goal)
• continuing to post on the No-/Controlled-Spend thread, and got 18/21 no spending days (aw, goal missed) and 25/24 no eating out days – goal met!
• Despite my later work schedule, I actually worked out more times this month (9!) although there were big breaks in between those days. It’d be good to be more evenly spaced out with the workouts.. we’ll see.
• Worked hard to stay positive at work this month, although it was harder than last month. Did not feel like I had a lot of energy at work. Will try better at this in March.
• Updated my resume – goal met!
• Got a performance evaluation – it was glowing! Hard to identify areas for improvement, actually. Will need to think about that part some more.
• Continued to learn about investing – I feel really solid about what I need to know for now, so I’m going to consider this goal met! (When I get enough put away to branch out into emerging markets and so on, I’ll put the goal back on the list.)
• Saved my entire tax return and put it into my new Roth! Goal met!
• Took more surveys.. and got to cash out two of them, actually! Got a $10 gift card to amazon, and will be getting a check in the mail for the other program. I’ll count that one when it actually arrives. Monthly goal met!
• Was not so patient this month. Will try again in March!
• Sent my Grandma and my Dad Valentine’s cards, and sent another card to Grandma. I’d like to add in a phone call to her for March.

Man, what a February. And to think that last February I was $20k in credit card debt. Look at me now :)