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!

Percentages

I finally got my W2, and besides being able to do my taxes (yay!) and see how little I made last year (boo!), I was able to go through and figure out what percent of my annual income went to my different goals. I think this will be exciting:

Contributions to retirement: 19.15% (Woah!!)

Wedding fund savings: 14.38%

Emergency fund: 9.83%

Debt repayment: 12.86% (Paying off the Bank of Mom and student loan payments)

Payments to credit card companies: 0.00% (Take that!)

All in all, I saved 52.68% of my income last year, and lived on less than 35% of it.

Nice!

I'm stunned!

It took awhile to add all this up, but once I did I was pretty surprised. I've felt pretty positive about the things I've been working on in 2009, and it's cool to see the numbers behind that feeling. Ready?

2009 Year in Review:

No-Spend Days: 222 (!!!)
No Eating Out Days: 290 (!!!)
Extra Income: $1,123.99 ($244.51 from surveys, $250 cash back from Chase, $210 from bank offers, $30.21 in rebates, $50 from being right, $160 from transferring prescriptions, and $179.27 interest)
Progress Toward Savings Goal: 94.31%
Retirement Savings: $7507.54 (really!)
“Healthy” Days (eating well or working out): 86.5 (ha ha)
Books Finished: 28
Times Flossed: at least 48 (somehow I missed October?)
Letters/Cards/Contacts: at least 43 (October again – what was up with me that month?)

Progress on 2009 Goals:

• All in all, I met 27 of my 35 goals. Wowza!
• 8 goals did not get fully met during this calendar year:
• “Save $250 and start an ING account to get the referral bonus” – I kept finding other bank offers that were paying more than this one, and so I never got around to it! I will put it on the list for 2010 and see if the offer is still available. There’s another one from Wells Fargo on the coffee table as I type this.. so we’ll see! Banks just can’t get enough of me ;)
• “Max out my 2009 Roth by April 15, 2010” – and actually, I’ve got 4 more months to keep working on this one. But technically it didn’t get done in 2009 so I wanted to be honest!
• “Big Emergency Fund to $5000” – it got pretty high but then I spent it on wedding deposits. This will be an ongoing goal, and it won’t break my heart if it doesn’t happen within a year. It’s just what I’d like to see the EF at.
• “Laser Eye Surgery Fund – get $2000 into the fund before the surgery, and then do the 18-month interest free financing while the money’s in a high yield savings account” – haven’t even started this yet, lol. May have to wait til after the wedding!
• "Start laptop/car replacement funds and a dream house fund, when possible (goal amounts $5000, $10000)" – same here!
• “Get to a positive net worth – including student loan debt” – not there yet, but getting closer!
• “Take the middle school math praxis” – scheduled for January 9, 2010
• “Take care of other requirements to add middle school math to teaching certificate” – for obvious reasons, will have to wait until after January 9, 2010 ;)

Now I am going to go do THE DANCE OF JOY!

Join me, won't you? ;)

December Redux

Wrapping up the month (and year) here. This one's pretty cool, but the next one's even better! Check it out:

December:
No-Spend Days: 18
No Eating Out Days: 24
Extra Income: $120.35 ($30.30 from surveys, $50 cash back from Chase, and $40.05 from interest)
Progress Toward Savings Goal: 94.31%
Retirement Savings: $202.18
“Healthy” Days (eating well or working out): Gave myself the month off ;)
Books Finished: 2
Times Flossed: 3
Letters/Cards/Contacts: 5

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!
• continued contributing to my SIMPLE IRA (w/matching) – monthly goal MET! In fact, I contributed a little over $2,500 over the course of this year. Nice!
• I did not max out my 2009 Roth, but I got halfway there, and added the second half to my goals for 2010. All in all I did contribute $5k to my Roth account this year, though, so that proves that I can do it within one year!
• 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 (although just barely – December was a stretch!) – goal MET!
• began the process of rebuilding my “big EF” ;)
• continued to post on the No-/Controlled-Spend thread – annual goal MET!
• not quite there yet on the positive net worth (including school loan debt) goal, since I wiped out savings with the wedding deposits. But still pretty close, considering the size of that school loan debt! Will have to keep working on this in 2010.
• spent December being fat and lazy. Will worry about getting off my butt in January ;) All in all I think I was in better shape for most of 2009, and that was the point of this goal, so I’m feeling good about it. Feeling fat, at the moment, but good. ;) So I’m going to go ahead and say annual goal MET!
• definitely stayed positive at work this month – between the two roles, things have been busy and exciting, and I am looking forward to January! Annual goal MET!
• Am scheduled to take the middle school math endorsement assessment in just one week. Obviously won’t be able to finish the other requirements to fully get the endorsement, because the test got pushed back so far, but I’m halfway there, and will also be starting classes for my special ed endorsement on Monday, too. Bigger achievements than expected!
• continued doing lots of surveys while I can (I am predicting that I will not have as much time for these once class starts… but I do want to try to keep doing them and making some extra money). Overall, I made $244.51 from surveys this year. Not bad! Annual goal MET!
• tried to be patient and encouraging throughout the holiday madness :)
• kept in better touch with my grandmothers (both of them) and have already filled out all of my Christmas thank you cards. (My mom is proud of me, I know!). I think I did well with this goal this year, and plan to continue. Annual goal MET!

November Redux!

I didn't forget this time, it's just been a spend-o-riffic/travel-packed/crazy couple weekends. You'll get an idea below. My savings chart changed around all over the place and it took awhile to figure out... but the good news is, things are still moving in the right direction!

November:

No-Spend Days: 15

No Eating Out Days: 21

Extra Income: $59.32 ($45.10 from surveys, $14.22 interest)

Progress Toward Savings Goal: 82.34% (It looks like this didn’t go up very much, but I decided to take the amounts Airbear had given me toward the wedding fund OUT of my calculations… so the fact that it still went up at all is pretty frickin’ awesome!)

Retirement Savings: $190.20

“Healthy” Days (eating well or working out): 4 (haha, oops)

Books Finished: 5

Times Flossed: 3 (I think there might have been more? lol)

Letters/Cards/Contacts: 4

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!
• continued contributing to my SIMPLE IRA (w/matching) – monthly goal MET!
• transferred my SIMPLE IRA from an overpriced broker to Vanguard where I will get to pick the funds it goes into AND pay a lot less in fees, too! Also filled out the paperwork to roll over what I have at the broker to the Vanguard account. Some paperwork, some phone calls, but I’m really proud of myself for being proactive and taking care of it. Bonus 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” – although I then wiped it out, along with a big payment from Airbear, to prepay a bunch of wedding expenses. D’oh! It’s a little freaky not having “very much” in savings right now, but then I’m also realizing that the “not very much” amount is still more than I started the year with. Amazing what you get used to!
• Speaking of, I did get my “Special Occasion Fund” (as it was originally called, lol) up past its goal amount for the year. As I didn’t expect to get engaged when I started the year, it was a pretty small goal, all things considered, so I’ll have to keep working on that one next year. But we’ve paid several big expenses already. It’s kind of hard to estimate, though. Like – what’s the average price of a dinner reception in Brazil? Anybody know? (Anyway, original goal MET!)
• I had put off the laptop/car replacement/house funds for the moment, because I wanted to focus on the more immediate ones (and when I excitedly discovered the wedding fund was going to have to actually get funded, ha ha), so most of them are going to have to get carried over to next year, along with that laser eye fund. BUT now I’m not going to need the laptop fund after all, because I got a SWEET, SWEET deal on Cyber Monday this year – a better laptop than I had been wanting to buy for – get this – HALF of what I was preparing to spend! Of course I was not planning on buying it now, BUT I did pay cash and I am proud of that. I am also super excited to get a working laptop, partially because there are now 43 vertical lines on my current monitor (*sobs*), and partially because of the job-related update you’ll see below. (Keep reading, it’s a good one!)
• continued to post on the No-/Controlled-Spend thread
• am currently only about $1500 from an overall positive net work – even WITH the school loans! Omg! Sooooooooo cloooooooose!
• continued dancing, although our current waltzing class finished up before Thanksgiving and we’re going to take a break until after the holidays. I’m really going to have to start Wii Fit-ing again now!
• I got a PROMOTION! Part of the time I’ll be doing what I currently do (which is good, as I really enjoy that), and part of the time I’ll be taking on higher responsibilities. I get a shiny new title and – joy of joys – more pay! Do you hear the heavenly choir singing?! Because I do!
• did a TON of surveys this month. Really want to do a bunch more now, to get that EF filled back up!
• did pretty well being patient, even though it has been a pretty hectic month!
• did well keeping in touch this month – want to make a point of trying to talk to grandma a few extra times in December, although she’s one busy lady so that may be tough!

What two (years) can do

As you may or may not remember, I started my Debt Destruction Resolution (TM!) in November 2007. As I've just hit the two-year anniversary of that decision this week, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on where two years has brought me. No, scratch that. That is way too passive of a sentence. Rather I'm going to reflect on what I HAVE DONE in two years!

• paid off my car
• paid off all my credit cards
• become completely consumer debt free
• started multiple savings accounts
• created multiple (albeit small) income streams
• taken advantage of special rate offers from multiple banks to maximize return
• started a Roth IRA
• worked up to the point where I am able to fully fund a Roth within one calendar year
• contributed enough to my regular retirement to get the full company match
• established annual savings goals and am on my way to reaching them
• started planning ahead so my expenses are easy to cover without using credit
• have reduced my monthly expenses by more than half
• have saved over four months' worth of expenses in an Emergency Fund
• have kept more than $2,000 of "short term emergency" money in the bank for over a year
• have paid off a combined total of $29,638.63 worth of debt (including the car, cards, loan, and payments toward the school loan)
• put 63% of my income for year one toward getting debt free
• have so far this year saved over 50% of my income (yes, really!)

And here's a real big kicker:

I am only $1,581.07 away from having a positive net worth - INCLUDING the student loan.

I think that's pretty amazing. That means I have increased my overall net worth by $46,667.22 in the last two years. Not bad on a $36k/yr salary, I think. :)

This calls for a HAPPY DANCE!

Okay, peeps, show me your happy dance ;)

Seriously, this is just embarrassing

October Redux:

No-Spend Days: 24

No Eating Out Days: 29 (!)

Extra Income: $ ($18.40 from surveys & $11.68 interest)

Progress Toward Savings Goal: 81.01%

Retirement Savings: $193.80

“Healthy” Days (eating well or working out): 5

Books Finished: 3

Times Flossed:

Letters/Cards/Contacts:

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!
• continued contributing to my SIMPLE IRA (w/matching) – monthly goal MET!
• took the tuition money I had saved and deposited it in my nephews’/niece’s tuition accounts – 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”
• continued to post on the No-/Controlled-Spend thread
• continued dancing, although dance classes are down to once a week because of a late schedule at work. The projector is fixed now, though, so hopefully I can get myself motivated to start Wii Fit-ing again!
• am doing very well with surveys – got some more recommendations from a No-spend friend and have been really trying to get them done before they expire (which is pretty quickly). The fun side of this is that now I am more frequently getting little prize checks in the mail - $3 here, $6.10 there, but a lot more fun to get little checks in the mail than it used to be to get BILLS in the mail!
• did pretty well being patient, even though I am feeling pretty impatient with work being so slow!
• did well keeping in touch this month – many birthdays and events in October!