August Redux

So I'm teaching this Personal Finance class (I know, right? Isn't my life the best?) and one of the little sidebar suggestions to the student today was to tell others about your plan so they can ask about it and help keep you accountable, or to post it somewhere you can see it. I told the kid, "...or you can post it on a blog or something and do both." "Smart!" he says. Of course I am, kid, of course I am ;)

Anyway, here goes:

August:

No-Spend Days: 19

No Eating Out Days: 22

Extra Income: $ 195.73 ($45 from surveys, $50 from amazon card, $40 for rx transfer, $50 from being right, & $10.73 interest)

Progress Toward Savings Goal: 64.24%

Retirement Savings: $1196.20

“Healthy” Days (eating well or working out): 6.5

Books Finished: 2 (including that long boring one, finally!)

Times Flossed: 7

Letters/Cards/Contacts: 2

Progress on 2009 Goals:

• 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!
• I got an offer in the mail from one of my “bonus banks” that if I made 3 debit card transactions they’d give me another $10 bonus. I did the transactions this month and should get the bonus mid-September. Sweet!
• I put my first $1000 toward my 2009 Roth contributions!
• continued contributing to my SIMPLE IRA (w/matching) – monthly 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!
• kept my “Little EF” above $1,000
• continued contributing to my “Big EF”
• have put a few extra dollars into my “Laser Eye Surgery Fund”… it’s not much, but at least it’s started!
• continued to post on the No-/Controlled-Spend thread – did much, much better than July. I can safely say I’m back on the wagon!
• more dancing! Plus I worked out a fall schedule that will include dancing three (!) times a week!
• did better staying positive at work – ended up being a busy month for enrollments and had a good time “racing” with those. Am hoping to keep it up in September!
• registered for the exam (WEST-E, now, no longer Praxis, although that hardly matters) that I need to pass for adding a middle school math endorsement to my teaching certificate – taking the test mid-September.
• did better with surveys this month, and got a nice handful of rewards from several of the companies. That’s some nice motivation!
• did pretty well being patient this month!
• not as good on the “staying connected” goal this month – will get better throughout the fall as there are lots of cards to send, and when I’m sending birthday cards to others I can remind myself to reach out to my little grandma, too :)
• Bonus goal – I even identified some 2010 financial goals already! Go me!