July Redux

July:

No-Spend Days: 10

No Eating Out Days: 15

Extra Income: $18.21 ($7.81 interest, $10.40 check from surveys)

Progress Toward Savings Goal: 55.20%

Retirement Savings: $193.80

Workout Days: 6

Books Finished: 1 (but also some more of the boring book and a *bit* of Portuguese)

Times Flossed: 2 (ha ha, oops!)

Letters/Cards/Contacts: 8

Progress on 2009 Goals:

• Completely PAID OFF the Bank of Mom loan and became consumer debt free!!!!! (Sorry for the excessive use of exclamation points, but this was a HUGE accomplishment for me and it is hard to contain my excitement! (!!!) Ha ha ha.) MAJOR DEBT GOAL MET!
• 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 – monthly goal MET!
• met all of the monthly requirements for my Checking ++ account – monthly goal MET! (The rate is down to 4.02%, though, boo!)
• I received my $100 bonus from US Bank! Goal MET! (And then they sent me another offer in the mail to get $150 for starting an account. Jerks!)
• continued contributing to my SIMPLE IRA (w/matching). I have contributed over $1400 this year, well past my initial estimated goal of $1000. Goal MET!
• have continued to contribute little amounts to my vacations/gifts funds, and have not spent money on those two things without saving it first – monthly goal MET!
• put away $100 for my nephews’/niece’s tuition accounts (which I will be able to actually fund once the enrollment period is open in September). Goal MET!
• kept my “Little EF” above $1,000
• continued contributing to my “Big EF”
• continued to post on the No-/Controlled-Spend thread. I knew July would be hard, with a slew of birthdays, a wedding, a couple trips back home, and some gifts, but then we also had a spectacular heat wave that made cooking at home unbearable! I feel like I spent more this month than I have since the beginning of my debt destruction race. Part of it was also just enjoying a bit of coasting now that the debt was finally paid off. Don’t get me wrong, I am DEFINITELY not going to make this a habit (I want to meet those savings goals!), but after a year and a half of pinching every penny until it cried, I took a well-deserved (I think) break. I didn’t have to break into savings or anything drastic like that but I certainly won’t be contributing much. So I’m actually looking forward to getting back on the wagon in August. It’s funny, but these things do become habits over time!
• I worked out 6 times … but all 6 were dancing, so I’m going to try to continue that, since it’s a work out regimen I might actually stick with! (Plus I got the girls to go salsa dancing for my birthday, and several said they wanted to go again.. bonus!)
• staying positive at work was hard. I want some more excitement around there, the quiet is driving me crazy! Will keep trying to plug along. I should be having my performance evaluation next month, so I am trying to make myself be proactive and energetic so that I can have a million awesome things to say about myself (instead of just the 999,999 I already have, lol)
• I got information about the math assessment I will need to take as part of the requirements for adding a middle school math endorsement to my teaching certificate (although I can't take it until September, boo!)
• slacked off a bit in the survey department this month, too – between melting in the heat and being busy, I just didn’t get around to many surveys. But I did get another reward check in the mail and now that it seems to be cooling off my brain might function a little better and enable me to do things that involve reading. Ha ha.
• did pretty well being patient this month!
• much better on the “staying connected” goal this month – did a lot of this!

Has anyone noticed their summer turning into a "spendapalooza," or is it just me?