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!