January Redux

Ha ha, I totally forgot that January had ended. Duh! Anyway, here goes with the first month-end recap of 2010!

January:
No-Spend Days: 25 (!)
No Eating Out Days: 27
Extra Income: $99.62 ($91.84 from surveys and $7.78 interest**)
Progress Toward Savings Goal: 9.67%*
Retirement Savings: $183.56
“Healthy” Days (eating well or working out): 3 (lol)
Books Finished: 2 (and started four others)
Times Flossed: 5
Letters/Cards/Contacts: 10

*This is a little misleading – I am only updating my savings tracking after the 15^th of each month, since that’s when I pay my rewards cc and have my monthly expenses all taken care of. So this number is only indicative of what I saved from Jan. 1 – Jan. 15. Still not bad, though!

**Damn, my interest rate is down to 3.77%. That has got to start coming back up!

Progress on 2009 Goals:

• Still paying off that rewards card every month
• 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!

• continued contributing to my SIMPLE IRA (w/matching) – monthly goal MET!
• kept my “Little EF” above $1,000 – monthly goal MET!

• continued contributing to my “Big EF”
• continued contributing to the Wedding Fund
• funded eye care and car maintenance accounts before going to the eye doctor and car repair shop. I even had to have one unexpected car repair done, and the money was already sitting in the account, so I didn’t even have to stress about it. Amazing! Me, not stress!
• continued posting on the No-/Controlled-Spend thread, and was really hardcore about it this month. In fact, I made it until the last weekend of January with only three spend days (but then had some unavoidable travel expenses come up at the last minute). Still, I barely spent much of anything and I know that’s going to help the saving in February when I don’t have much to pay off on the rewards card.
• FAIL on the “try to fit in at least two workouts per week” goal. Oops!
• did very well staying positive and energized (and busy!) at work. January was a great month at the school, so hopefully that will continue!
• took (and passed, yay!) the middle school math endorsement test – annual goal MET! (First one, too!) Now I just need to wait until I’m actually teaching a middle school math class and set up the observation part to get my endorsement.
• began taking classes toward my special ed endorsement, without taking on any school loan debt!
• I haven’t finished any classes yet, so technically I don’t have a GPA per se, but both of my papers so far have been 4.0s and my teacher called me a “gifted writer,” so I’m going to go ahead and count that as a monthly goal MET!
• completed my tax return and sent it off, and when it comes I am going to SAVE IT so I can meet this annual goal!
• Oops, forgot to use my “backup” credit cards for something small this month. I’ll try to remember to do it in February, so they don’t get closed for inactivity.
• did a metric butt-load of surveys this month, and am indeed finding (as a friend told me) that the longer I belong to the different survey places, the higher-paying surveys they send me. It’s nice to see the payouts come faster! I know when you divide it up it’s still not an hourly wage that’s comparable to doing freelance work or taking on a second job, but it’s easy to do when DF and I are sitting on the couch with our laptops, and let’s face it, at the end of a day at school I do not have enough brain left in my head to do a second job ;)
• It was a rough month for me, personally, but I’m doing better now and I tried not to be a heinous bitch in the meantime. Luckily I have a very understanding support group :) And we’re working on the ‘save the dates’!
• I am proud to say that I did follow through on my “send at least one card to each of my grandmothers” goal. In fact, I sent two, but I figured the Christmas thank you cards shouldn’t count as the monthly card ;) I did count all of the thank you cards toward my total contacts for the month, though, because… well, obviously, it makes the total look more awesome! :) Monthly goal MET!