Two in a row - zing!

Of course it's only because I'm catching up on stuff that is old, but whatever ;) It's a growing trend!

Reduxen:

February:
No-Spend Days: 16 (not bad for including 5 vacation days, all spends)
No Eating Out Days: 23 (also includes 5 vacation days, all eating out)
Extra Income: $60.79 ($42 from surveys - just couldn't fit the time in for more - and $18.79 interest)
Progress Toward Savings Goal: (skip - as planned, writing 2011 goals after wedding) %
Retirement Savings: $223.86
Working Out Days: 10
Books Finished: 0 (Yikes!)

January:
No-Spend Days: 26
No Eating Out Days: 29
Extra Income: $200.81 ($143.38 from surveys, including a little food processor thingie and a 16-pc Ginsu knife set, $50 cash back from my chase card, and $7.43 interest)
Progress Toward Savings Goal: (skip - as planned, writing 2011goals after wedding) %
Retirement Savings: $203.98
Working Out Days: 19
Books Finished: 2

Payoff

SO it has been a very busy 2.5 months so far! Since the beginning of the year I have been eating healthy, working out, learning Portuguese, doing a special education internship, saving all the dollarz I could get my hands on, doing homework, finishing up wedding and travel plans, and working long hours at school. Actually, being that busy really helped in the saving dollarz department - the real motivation exercise was refraining from eating out every day and so that I could use the saved time to sleep. But I did pretty well. I haven't been posting on the money message boards (partly because they moved off of MSN to a new format I didn't have time to learn, but also because I didn't really have time to read or write, either), but I have been continuing to track my no-spend and no-eating-out days. Of course the busy schedule did not do much for my posting frequency over here, as you've noticed (which was funny to me when this blog was actually mentioned by our officiant in the wedding speech), but I figured the keeping-on-track was paramount to the talking about it, at least for the immediate present.

It did get a little tiring, that first quarter of the year, and with so much on my figurative plate the Shoulder Angel of Self-Indulgence (TM) really did start to whine loudly in my ear. And honestly, if I hadn't had a really big, short-term financial goal to push me (the wedding/trip), maybe I'd have listened. I mean, really, sometimes something has to give. And if your schedule is going to go insane and your time is going to get devoured, even *I* am not against making choices to balance things out a bit and save some of your sanity. But I DID have a really big, short-term financial goal, and it was motivating enough to help me ride out a short period of probably having a little too much on said proverbial plate.

And because I DID work really hard to ride it out, I get to say this:

The fancy-pants wedding? With the two fabulous venues, and transportation, and bodyguards [1], and samba dancers, and gourmet food and drinks? And the trip to Brazil? And the Carnaval costumes, and the parade, and the hang-gliding, and the 13 days of dancing and celebrating and eating out and shopping and doing what-the-hell-ever we wanted?

That was paid for in cash. Credit card balance: $0.

[1] Yes, really! They were hysterical!!

I'm surprised this site hasn't shut down by now

Seriously, fell off the face of the Earth there, didn't I? Things got kind of crazy busy for me, and while I kept tracking everything and saving, obviously the reporting kind of fell by the wayside. I know you've been shivering with antici-(SAY IT!)-pation [1] without my monthly reduxes (reduxen?), though, so I totaled up everything and am presenting ......drumroll....... 2010 in Review!

TOTAL for 2010:

No-Spend Days: 249
No Eating Out Days: 300
Extra Income: $2150.38 (Holy crap!)($1464.30 from surveys, $200 cash back from my chase card, $118.98 from selling back books, $3 from a rebate, and $364.10 interest)
Progress Toward Savings Goal: 143.75%
Retirement Savings: $3,012.56
“Healthy” Days (eating well or working out): 54.5 or so (lost count the last four months)
Books Finished: 17 (that does not seem like very many, considering the amount of time I spent reading this year!)
Times Flossed: lost count
Letters/Cards/Contacts: lost count of exact number, but completed goal – see below

Progress on 2010 Goals:

• Always paid off my full credit card balance each month (just used it for the rewards) and did not pay a cent of interest – GOAL MET!
• Paid cash for all wedding expenses to debt and have stayed debt free – GOAL MET!
• Aside from about two weeks (waiting on transfers back and forth), kept my Teacher Bank savings & checking balances above $750 to earn the special interest rate – I’m going to go ahead and count this one as GOAL MET!
• Met the requirements for my rewards checking account every month to earn their special interest rate – GOAL MET!
• I never did start an ING account for that $25 referral bonus – I just never got around to it. Actually I’m not sure if they have the program still. If I get my balance above $10k in my rewards checking account (ha ha), which is the limit for the special rate, maybe I’ll look into additional accounts. For now, I think I’m doing pretty well.
• I utterly failed on the Roth goal for 2010, but that was by choice. I decided to just save everything I could so that I can make sure to have enough to pay the wedding expenses in cash, and while I know retirement is important (trust me, it’s my first financial goal after the wedding!), I really want to stay out of debt, too.
• Contributed at least $2500 to my SIMPLE IRA w/matching – GOAL MET!
• Kept a “gifts fund” and a “vacations fund” and did not go into debt for either of these two former danger zones – despite an unexpected, short-notice trip to Paris! I call that a major life success, right there! GOAL MET!
• Contributed $100 to my niece & nephews’ tuition accounts (and did it early, before the price went up in March) – GOAL MET!
• Kept “Little Emergency Fund” above $1000 (actually above $1500 – I keep this in my Teacher Bank account) – GOAL MET!
• Did not get the “Big Emergency Fund” to $5000 this year – same reason as the Roth goal, really. It’s grown, it’s shrunk, but it’s didn’t make it that high. I’m okay with it, though – I handled every emergency life through my way this year without freaking out too excessively (fewer F-bombs, Mom!!) because I had a financial buffer to cover things. So I didn’t meet the specific goal but I am still feeling pretty happy about it.
• Had a goal to “focus on the Wedding Fund” – certainly did that! (I’m not going to tell you how much, because you’d throw up, or I’d throw up, or maybe both, but in any case at least it’s all paid for!) We’re going to have an amazing wedding and a fabulous trip with 25 of our nearest and dearest, and I didn’t have to take out a loan or stack up credit card debt. I’m pretty proud of all this. GOAL MET!
• Started an Eye Care Fund, a “Fixing Stuff” Fund, and a “Car Maintenance Fund” and prepared myself ahead of time for these big (and infuriating) expenses. It was all a little too much work, though – I think in the future I’ll just have one “Big Emergency Fund” (i.e., money set aside for if Airbear were to lose his job or the house burned down) and a regular bank balance that can handle new contacts or replacement tires. It’s funny, me, going in the direction of fewer things to track instead of more – not what you expected, I know – but between wedding planning, working, going to school, doing homework, working out, and learning Portuguese, it turns out that I do eventually run out of time for even my beloved Excel spreadsheets. Who knew! Anyway, the original point was GOAL MET!
• Continued posting on the Controlled/No-Spend Thread (and managed quite a few no-spends, as you can see above… Much more than last year’s 222 & 290, respectively. Exciting!). GOAL MET! I kind of ran out of steam with the posting toward the end of the year, but I kept tracking. The boards have all been discontinued at MSN’s site (boo!) and have moved over to a newer site, but I haven’t really had time to figure out how to use it yet. So we’ll see if that ends up being something I continue, maybe after the wedding/school program when I have some time and/or brain cells to spare. Either way I met some great friends there that I am still in contact with and certainly developed some great financial habits. I will always be grateful that I found that place when I did.
• As far as whether I got to a positive net worth (including the student loan debt), unfortunately I have to say I have no idea. Ha ha ha. That’s terrible. But honestly I haven’t updated that spreadsheet since like January – just haven’t had time – and with money transferring here, there, and everywhere it’s just not something I can stop and figure out right now. Obviously the net worth is solidly in the positive when the school loan isn’t figured in, and so I’m fine with being happy about that and figuring out the rest in a few months. When I write my goals for 2011 (which will be after the wedding & trip are over) and I have fewer, simpler savings goals, everything will be streamlined and this will be easier to calculate.
• Working out came and went in phases, as I’m sure it does for most people – some months I did absolutely zero, some I did four times a week. I’ve been on a good run lately so I’m pretty excited about that.
• I still have trouble being “patient and positive” in the mornings (Sorry, Mom) – I have a really short fuse in the a.m. and it’s something I want to try to improve.
• I found out all the remaining requirements for adding the middle school math endorsement to my teaching certificate, and have everything lined up for a program to do my “internship” (a few BS assignments and an observation or two). What’s more, I finally got a middle school math student! (That’s what’s been holding this process up.) In fact, I could be doing the MS Math internship program right now – but for once in my life I decided not to play on All The Way Hard and am only doing ONE internship in addition to my full time job, instead of two. Aren’t you proud? Anyway, this will be any easy one to finish up post-wedding/post-current-internship.
• Continued my special ed endorsement classes without going into any additional student loan debt, and so far have maintained a 4.0! That’s TWO GOALS MET!
• Ha ha – I had a goal in this list (I’m looking at it now) that said, “Research additional mutual funds and continue to diversify my investments” – Uh, nope, didn’t do that! I have learned more along the way (and balanced both mine and Airbear’s retirement portfolios for a second year of larger-than-average returns!). It turns out I make very good investment decisions. So many things I would never have expected. ;)
• Saved my whole tax return – GOAL MET!
• Checked my credit reports – GOAL MET!
• Used each of my 3 backup credit cards every 3 months and paid them off immediately to keep them active – GOAL MET!
• Did more surveys – a TON more, actually – and found ways to make $2150.38 of extra money this year. That’s like half my annual salary! GOAL SOUNDLY MET!
• And finally I followed through with my goal of sending both of my grandmothers at least one card every month and keeping in touch better. I’m not sure if it makes a difference, but it feels good to me to do it, and I hope it makes them smile.

All in all a very productive, very busy, and (if I do say so myself) (and I do) financially successful year! That sounds like bragging, but when “financial success” means a lot of hard work, planning, self-denial, and energy (and not, say, just winning the lotto), it is important to stop and say, if only to yourself and your mother (Hi, Mom!), I did a good job. There is still room to grow – isn’t there always – but I worked really hard and I did a good job and I am going to take some time to celebrate that and be proud of myself.

Happy end of 2010!

[1] Lol nevermind, it's a lame reference ;)

Wedding Shoes!

Just imagine the red of a red, red rose :)

March Redux (Finally...)

Oh my gosh, seriously it's almost April! *Embarrassed*

Here we go!

March:

No-Spend Days: 25
No Eating Out Days: 26
Extra Income: $205.47 ($107.30 from surveys, $50 from my chase card, and $48.17 interest)
Progress Toward Savings Goal: 25.43%
Retirement Savings: $207.74
“Healthy” Days (eating well or working out): 17.5 (WAY better!)
Books Finished: 0 (Although I did read all but 2 chapters of a couple of school books; I just don’t want to finish them because they were terrible, so I can’t count them!)
Times Flossed: 6
Letters/Cards/Contacts: 6

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!
• Filled the tuition fund for my nieces and nephews, and contributed more to the gift fund in advance of Gift Month (i.e., late April/early May) – 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
• used my (previously-filled) eye-care fund, and it was even less than I expected. Bonus! Also decided I don’t need the professional development fund, since I figure the special ed classes are enough professional development for one year ;)
• continued posting on the No-/Controlled-Spend thread
• kicked butt on the working out goal! Even made up for a little of the slacking off the past two months :)
• my performance evaluation at work was excellent ;)
• checked my credit report – no inaccuracies, and looking great! Annual goal MET!
• did very well staying positive and energized (and busy!) at work. It was still a little slower, so hopefully it will pick up. But we were in the black, so hooray for that!
• ended up getting a 4.0 in my first special ed class – yay!
• continued doing a ton of surveys and earned enough in amazon cards to get a new workout program :)
• I again followed through on my “send at least one card to each of my grandmothers” goal, and in fact I sent April’s cards at the end of March too, to get there before Easter. Monthly goal MET!

February Redux

The funniest thing about this is that the reason it took me a week to post the month-end update is because I had to get my planner from work to see how many times I flossed my teeth. Ha ha ha. What an annoying goal to track. But it does actually make me do it, I guess. Anyway, on to the good stuff!

February:

No-Spend Days: 18

No Eating Out Days: 24

Extra Income: $138.08 ($122.70 from surveys (yes, really! Included the price of 2 movie tickets), $3 from a rebate, and $12.38 interest)

Progress Toward Savings Goal: 18.40%

Retirement Savings: $713.00

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

Books Finished: 4

Times Flossed: 6

Letters/Cards/Contacts: 6

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!
• put my entire tax return into savings (my 2009 Roth, actually) – annual goal MET!
• added an extra lump sum along with the tax return to put $500 into the 2009 Roth. A good start to this year’s portion of my 2009 contributions, but still a long ways to go before April 15!
• started my gifts fund and the tuition fund for my nieces and nephews
• 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
• continued posting on the No-/Controlled-Spend thread
• FAIL on the “try to fit in at least two workouts per week” goal again – only once per week (yikes), but so far I’m off to a much better start at this in March – just wait and see!
• did very well staying positive and energized (and busy!) at work. It was a little slower, so hopefully it will pick up.
• still doing well in my first special ed class (100% on all assignments so far), but we’ll see how I make it through this (*coughstupidcough*) group project to finish out the semester
• used all three of my “backup” credit cards for something small, since I forgot to take care of this goal in January. Paid off two of them immediately, but had to wait to get bank info set up on the third (annoying!). Anyway, should be taken care of shortly, so I’ll count this as a goal met!continued doing a ton of surveys and, as you can see, got to cash out quite a few this month. That definitely helps with the motivation!
• I again followed through on my “send at least one card to each of my grandmothers” goal, with a few more to boot. Monthly goal MET!

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!