Well I made it about 12 whole hours into the new year before I decided that I probably should have added one more goal to my Financial Goals for 2009 list. That would be Number 5– Buy home insurance. Well, renter’s insurance, as I am currently renting an apartment and likely will be for a while yet. It’s on my 101 Things list, but on New Year’s Day, I definitely set my stove ON FIRE. I mean ACTUAL FLAMES. Whoops? Don’t worry, everything is fine… a pan boiled over into the drip pan, burnt, and then ignited. I was standing in the kitchen in front of the pot when it happened and put it out immediately. But you can’t help but think… what if I hadn’t been standing right there? What if one of my neighbors had set THEIR stove on fire, and couldn’t put it out? After all, the security of my home and my belongings also counts on 7 other people not doing something wrong, not just my own actions!

But back to the goals I DID make. I’ve been crunching the numbers and trying to figure out how to make it work so I can come to you on January 1, 2010 and say YES I accomplished them all.

1. Pay off my car — I’m counting on selling some belongings to accomplish this one. In specific, I’m selling my Wii to my mom. Like I mentioned here when I first threw out the idea of selling it, the MSRP on my Wii and the games is $480. (I may have spent a slight bit more than that due to the Wii Fit being out of stock EVERYWHERE). It was one of those purchases that was almost immediately regretted because I bought it when I couldn’t afford it, but I persisted anyways. Of course the guilt of “Do you realize what you could have done with four HUNDRED and eighty dollars?” kept me from really enjoying it. I’ve barely turned it on in a couple of months, my mom really wants a Wii, and I can use the money she’s giving me more than I can use a $480 dust collector on my TV stand. Mom’s got the money budgeted out of her next paycheck, so as long as nothing changes, hopefully within the next 2 weeks my car will be paid off.

2. Put money back in my emergency fund — my modest goal is $500 for the year. I can either put $42 a month back for this, or put the whole amount back when I get my tax refund.

3. Save money for Christmas in cash– this is basically the same as number 2.

4. Pay off WaMu Credit Card– I’ve been playing with this one alot since this is the one that I’m worried about. According to the many calculators I’ve found online, this will take $278 a month. And for those of you playing at home, no the monthly payments for all three are not in my current budget. I’m trying to decide if I’m going to use the monthly budget for my savings budgets, and put the whole tax refund on my credit card, or the other way around.

Putting the lump sum on my credit card probably makes more sense, given the interest rates in question, but I like the idea of being able to set aside the whole amounts (or just about) into savings at the beginning of the year, having the money there in case something were to happen, and being able to focus on just the one goal that’s left. That’s the way I’m leaning, but I probably won’t decide until I know just how much my tax refund is going to be (I’ve played with the numbers and have an estimate) and when it will be here.

Also, I still don’t know what a regular paycheck at the new rate is going to look like, so that will affect my numbers a little bit. It probably won’t make a huge difference, but it should make hitting those target numbers at least a little bit easier. Either way though, I’m going to have to be good about finding extra money and really snowflaking where I can… right now, when categories come in under budget, sometimes the surplus finds it’s way onto the focus debt, but sometimes it just stays in my account and becomes a checkbook leak.

We all know how quickly things can change, but at this point, I’m optimistic. And hey, even if I don’t hit all the goals, at least I’ll be in a much better position at this time next year!

First Self Portrait of the New Year! This also marks the beginning of the third year that we’ve been taking weekly self portraits. When this journey first started, I had no way of knowing that I’d actually follow through with it. After all, it’s the ONLY weekly meme that I have stuck with for more than a few weeks at a time.

I took this picture shortly before my family arrived for lunch today. We had a good afternoon, sharing a wonderful meal (if I do say so myself), dessert, and just time to sit and visit. Right now I’m watching The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and working up the motivation to go take care of the dishes in the kitchen. I also need to cut up the vegetables for my lunch tomorrow because I’m determined to take my lunch this week rather than buying it at work.

In the meantime, I’m crunching some numbers to see how realistic my financial goals for the year are, if and how I’m going to accomplish them. That’s all stuff for another post, however, maybe tomorrow.

I won’t tell you how old she is, but I bet I’ve let the cat out of the bag in the past, so you could probably go back and do the math if you wanted to

Here’s the trick to taking a picture of my mother– distract her with a baby and take her picture when she’s not paying attention!

Tonight and tomorrow I’m supposed to be cleaning so that she (and Harold and Grandma) can come over for dinner on Sunday. She asked for White Chicken Parmesan so I’ll be making that, and hopefully a dessert if I can track down the recipe I’ve misplaced. Ryan and Ash-lee let her keep the baby for a few days for her birthday… No Swiss Army watches, just babysitting and lunch… is it just me or does her birthday get less expensive all the time?

My apartment is not going to get clean with me sitting here, so I’m gonna go work on that.

Happy Birthday Mom! See you Sunday!

Since I don’t really have resolutions other than the financial goals that I’ve already outlined, and the 101 Things list, I thought I’d start the year by looking back at what 2008 looked like on this blog, and in Self Portrait Sunday pictures… turned out that I missed more weeks than I thought I had!

In January, 2008 started with at least 12 inches of snow.
I took a trip down memory lane and shared pictures of me as a baby and from my high school years.
I bought a Tivo which served to really make my life easier all year. I got more sleep because I didn’t stay up late to watch shows, and I quit missing things I wanted to watch because I set the VCR wrong.
I went back to church, which was a nice change at the time, but I think I stopped going to church again in February.

In February, I started crocheting a new blanket, and confession time is that I haven’t gotten a whole lot further than that almost a year later.
I started focusing on my finances. I took stock of all my debts on February 5th, and started making a plan of attack. I’d decided I was tired of being stressed about the rising balances on my credit cards.
My nephew Killian turned 1 year old and we partied it up for his birthday.
After one whole day on the job, I discovered that I was not cut out to be a paper delivery girl.

In March, I decided I needed to learn to have thicker skin at work. I’m not sure it’s worked, so maybe that still on the list of things to accomplish.
I took a Flat Stanley all around the area to take pictures of landmarks.
My mom and I traveled to Anderson for the weekend, using a friend’s baby shower as an excuse to sit in a hotel hot tub all weekend.
I finally started making progress on my new financial plan and my emergency fund.

In April, I finally finished unpacking and sorting through the boxes, and thoroughly cleaning my apartment. It only took me 2 years after I moved in.
I woke up to the tremors of my first earthquake.
My best friend made my day by bringing me a great Secretary’s Day present because she knew I never get acknowledged.

In May, I voted in my first primary as the state of Indiana actually mattered this year!
I seriously considered getting a new webhost when Bluehost suspended my account in a stunning display of poor customer service.
And… I spent a lot of time whining about my sinuses and being sick. One of several times this year I needed to buy stock in Kleenex.

In June, I didn’t write a whole lot because the security guards had moved into the lobby with me at work, and I was on overload.
I also started drafting my goals for my 101 things in 1001 days project.

In July, my shower wall was broken and the maintenance guys just taped plastic over the wall. I held a contest to see how long it would be before the work was done, and we were all surprised by how long it ended up taking.
I breathed a huge sigh of relief when the guards moved back out to the guardhouse.
I spent a good bit of time on the beach of Lake Michigan, and fell off the wagon with my credit cards.

In August, I discovered that buying a knee-length black skirt for a chubby girl was an impossible task.
I loaded up my iPod, and spent a lot of time walking while the weather cooperated.
I turned 25 and celebrated in style with several days of birthday festivities beginning with margaritas with my girlfriends. We had a blast!
After falling off the wagon with my finances though, I had to decide how to spend the birthday money, on me or on the debt?

In September, maintenance FINALLY started work on my shower.
I also started crossing items off of my 101 things list. I received some flowers, sewed something, saved all my change for a month, and one more item marked private.
I attended my first Notre Dame football game. We won, but I spent most of the time people watching.

In October, I sent a secret to PostSecret. It never got posted.
I added progress bars to my sidebar to track my debts.
I had a little snafu with my bank account and some overdraft fees. I learned it was important to leave some money in my brick and mortar bank account.

In November, I did my part and voted in the Presidential election.
I got sick yet again, which took me AGES to get over.
And I got to have Killian all to myself for a few hours. I loved it, the cats did not.

In December, I started a new sewing project which hasn’t progressed much since I posted about.
There was a lot of family drama that I chose not to write about, and I celebrated Christmas with my family on 4 separate occasions.
I also outlined my financial goals for 2009.

After looking back over the year, there were highs and lows, but maybe it wasn’t as bad as I thought. Just that the lows came so close to the end of the year that it kind of colored my view of the whole year. Here’s to a better 2009!

No big party plans here… it’s almost 8pm, and I’m actually sitting here yawning, contemplating the merits of going to bed. If I DO end up going to bed, I’ll still set an alarm and get up to watch the ball drop. That’s probably kind of silly, but I don’t recall ever NOT watching it. Someday I’ll realize that it’s just midnight on just another day and get some proper sleep, but until then I’ll be dragging myself out of bed to watch Dick Clark and Times Square at midnight. Unless I stop being such an old lady and actually manage to stay up until midnight lol!

It’s been a long day… a long year actually. I know this year wasn’t all bad, but from where I sit right now it sure feels that way. It’s probably a bit unfair to this year, but part of me is really glad to see it go. I am glad to see today go… woke up feeling a bit sick this morning, developed a huge headache around lunchtime and said goodbye to my boss. It was his last day in his current position, and I was sad to see him go. Once he gets settled into his new position, he’ll probably be around some but not like before. It’s a change I’ve known about for months, and we’ve been preparing for, but it still felt kind of abrupt today. It’s not often that you find a boss that you actually like (at least in my, admittedly limited experience) so I’ll definitely miss him being around. And not just because I’m going to be lonely up in the lobby all by myself with noone to talk to!

So yeah, after all that, I think I will go to bed and get up in a few hours to ring in the new year, kiss the cat (since he’s the only male available), and go back to bed.

This is the very last Self Portrait Sunday for 2008, can you believe that? I took this picture yesterday before the final Christmas gathering of the year… my shirt says “Just how good do I have to be?” I shared my Christmas gifts in my last post, so apparently I managed to be good enough.

I can’t say I accomplished much this weekend, other than spending money that I shouldn’t. I did a little bit of shopping yesterday morning, then came home and showered. We had our small family Christmas for my mom’s side… the extended family was on Christmas Day, but just the small group of us got together yesterday for homemade Beef and Noodles and exchanging presents.

My big plan for today was to clean up the huge mess that my apartment became last week while I was so busy getting prepared for the holiday. I’ve had a pretty gigantic headache most of the day though, so I haven’t accomplished much besides sitting around and watching movies. I did manage to review my finances to see the damage, and I think now I’ll be looking for small business opportunities to bankroll it! Yikes… between Christmas and a bunch of random indiscriminate spending, my finances aren’t in very good shape. I’m still ahead of where I was last year, but not by a whole lot. I’m going to try and get together a real, concrete, tangible list of goals for my finances, so be looking for that in the next few days.

Well I guess I better think about going to find some dinner… I need to take some movies back to the redbox so I don’t have to pay for them for another night, and I’m not sure I’ve had an actual meal today. Hmmm…

It seems to be a requisite to list the Christmas presents you’ve gotten on your blog… since I’m such a good rule follower *cough* I thought I’d share what I got. I didn’t get an xbox 360, but I think I made out pretty good.

From Dad and Gloria I got the pajamas, slippers, and digital picture frame. Ryan and Ash-lee got me Sleeping Beauty and 101 Dalmations.
Gammie gave everyone a restaurant gift card.
Mom gave me Wall-E and the money to pay for my Flickr Pro account! And from Grandma I got a sweatshirt, and a second copy of 101 Dalmations that I’ll exchange for a movie I don’t already have.
Sarah got me an ergonomic crochet hook set because I have a cyst in my wrist that acts up when I’ve been crocheting too long.

How did you do? Did you get everything you’d been hoping for? As for me, I’m just glad Christmas is over… I was SO not in the mood for it this year!

Yes, I realize I’m just a wee bit late with the Merry Christmas sentiment, but the festivities aren’t quite over for my family so I think it still counts! We’ve got one last Christmas gathering this afternoon, and then we can put this holiday in the books. I hope you had a wonderful time with your families… or not with your family, if that floats your boat! I won’t say alot about the holiday, I’ll just leave you with a selection of my favorite pictures so far. Mostly Killian, surprise, surprise.

Mom and Carleigh

I think he likes it…

and my personal favorite:

Ho ho ho. Or something like that. Man, two Self Portrait Sunday posts in a row… whoops? It’s not like I’ve not had anything to say. I’ve actually been composing blog posts in my head all week, but apparently never got so far as to actually write them down. Rest assured, you’re probably not missing much… some whining about the snow/ice storm we had on Thursday night, but that’s about it.

Yesterday I spent a freaking fortune at the grocery store, without actually doing much for grocery shopping. That’s talent! I got my vacation buy back for the year, so I decided to take a good chunk of that money and go stock up on the paper goods and such that usually manage to break my normal grocery budget: toilet paper, paper towels, razors, shaving cream, pads, dishsoap, trash bags… the list goes on. I also bought the ingredients for some of the holiday baking I’m intending to do.

Starting with the Scrabble mix that mom and I made yesterday. I spent most of the rest of the day, after dropping my fortune at Meijer, at mom’s house between washing laundry and working on the Scrabble. Now I have a ton of Scrabble that I’ll be foisting off on people for the next week, and a clean winter coat for the first time in *whispers* three years. Well, two and a half considering this year’s not over yet.

Today is watching some Christmas movies and wrapping presents, hence the Santa get-up. All the basketball trophies, and brand new cars are already wrapped, and now I’m taking a break right now to write this and get motivated to tackle the stuffed animals that I need to wrap. You know, the ones I don’t have appropriate sized boxes for, so I will be attempting to wrap on their own. Yeah, that will be fun. I know, I practiced earlier on the pillow I got for Killian. Note to self: next year, make sure you have appropriately sized boxes for all presents. Square and rectangular objects are MUCH easier to wrap than irregularly shaped SQUISHY ones!

I never made any official goals for 2008 when I started this journey back in February, so I don’t have a list of goals to review right now. Maybe some goals would have helped? I will say that I am not where I had hoped to be, and that’s mostly due to a few occasions where I completely abandoned the program and went shopping. A lot.

The only way to make progress is to be honest, so here’s the dirty truth: In February of this year, I had 14,255.08 worth of credit card debt (plus a car loan). If you add in my student loan debt, I had a total debt load of $33,479.07. As of today, my credit card/car debt stands at $12,252.92, with a total debt load of $30,424.19.

So in the last 11 months, I’ve paid off $3054.88 worth of debt. The year is not a complete loss, but I had hoped to be, HAVE been, and should be further along than that. If we’re being completely honest here, one of my credit cards went the wrong direction even though the total amount is down. I’m a little sad that the progress is basically accounted for in minimum payments… but forward is forward and tomorrow is a new day. With that in mind, I’ve made a few goals for 2009.

Financial Goals for 2009

1. Pay off my car loan. This goal should be accomplished within the first two months of the year. My car loan is currently 451.18 away from being paid off. Between what should amount to an “extra” paycheck and selling my Wii, I should be able to knock this out quickly. Even if I just make payments on schedule, my loan is slated to be paid off in July. So either way, in 2009 I will own my car free and clear!

2. Put money (back) in my Emergency Fund. I’m not looking to fully fund my EF this year, but I raided what money I had set aside to pay off the CitiCard earlier this year, and my emergency fund is still sitting with .01 in it. I don’t regret using the money the way I did, but it is a little uncomfortable to have that paid off credit card be my only “emergency fund.” Basically I want to put at least $500 back into my savings account at ING. I know it’s a small amount, but I’m just looking to put a little distance between me and Murphy while I focus on other goals.

3. Set aside money to finance Christmas next year in cash. I had planned to use cash this year, but since I hadn’t set it aside in advance, it didn’t quite work. I would have had to wait until 6 days before Christmas to do the bulk of my shopping since that’s when the paycheck with the majority of my available money came in. When I’ve had time to sit down and rework my budget, I’ll try and come up with a dollar amount that I’m shooting for, and a per paycheck/per month amount to put into a special savings account.

4. Pay off my WaMu credit card. This is my smallest credit card, which is part of why it’s the one I’m going to focus on, but it’s also the one with the highest interest rate. Between the other goals I’ve already listed, and just keeping up with the rest of the minimum payments in my life, paying this one off ENTIRELY may be a bit of a stretch, but I’m sure going to try!

So there you have my four financial goals for the coming year… I didn’t really expect to be ready to discuss the difference between term life insurance and, well, all the other types of life insurance available, but I did expect to be a whole lot further along. I can’t change the past though, so I’ll just have to move forward from where I’m at. And I can be grateful that I’m three thousand dollars closer to freedom than I was a year ago… it’s better than nothing, and for the most part, I’ve stopped digging.

I should be getting a small raise in a week or so, and when I find out what a “normal” paycheck looks like, I’ll be sitting down to rework the budget. It’s not a lot of money, but hopefully it will be enough to help me move these goals along. I’ll keep you posted!