One of my intentions for this year is to check in on my 2020 financial goals monthly! Although I am horrible at finances, one thing I have learned over our last 10 years of debt, is that when I pay better attention to our finances, our finances do better...
I still believe that if these 20 financial goals are met, we
will drastically improve our financial situation by the end of the year! In all
honesty, even if only some of these goals are met, we will be in a better place
than we were when this year started. Please wish us luck as we try to do better
and be better!
It’s actually been several months since I checked in on my
goals… since June I think! Eeeek! I haven’t forgotten about them, I just
haven’t blogged. Let’s see where we stand.
1.
Get credit card debt below $10000. This has been
a monkey on my back for way too long!
Pass-ish:
We are making progress. I would say we are on-track-ish. I don’t know if
we will make it to under $10000 by the end of the year, but we did decrease our
debt. It’s going in the right direction. The last couple months haven’t seen
much progress, but we haven’t increased our debt, so I will call it a win.
2.
Track our family spending every other month of
the year.
Fail: Quite
honestly, life threw us several curve balls in the last month so tracking my
spending has been the least of my worries. Exactly the same as last time I
checked in on my goals! With quarantining and social distancing, tracking our
spending has fallen WAY down the list! Our food budget has ballooned! We have
nothing to do all day but sit home and eat or try new recipes! I should be
tracking this so I know how much we are spending on food, but I’m afraid to
look!
3.
Increase contributions to envelopes and go “cash
only”.
Fail-ish: We
have actually met 50% of this goal, but because 50% is an F, I’m giving us a
failing grade overall. We did increase envelope contributions, but we did not
go cash only. We are still not cash only, but we are paying more in cash and
charging less. Working on it… Same as last month. However, again, quarantining
has lent itself to online shopping by necessity. Groceries and gas we are still
using cash, but right now everything else is credit.
4.
Increase Christmas savings.
Pass: We
increased from $200 per month to $300 per month. I still don’t know if it’s
enough, but it is an increase of 50%. We are almost done Christmas shopping so
I’m feeling optimistic. In August, over a 4 day period, I spent over $800 on
Christmas gifts; it was more money than we had in the envelope. I actually had
to borrow from our “stimulus” envelope and am paying it back in 4 monthly
installments. However, I’m still calling this a win! The bigger test will be
when it gets closer to October and November and we see where we are!
5.
Church Tithing. My goal is to donate $300 EVERY.
SINGLE. MONTH.
Pass: So
far so good. We donated $300 in January, February, March, April, May, June,
July, and August. (We barely made August. I didn’t send out tithe until August
31, but it was still in August.) We have already budgeted the money for the
rest of the year, but we need to follow through, which is not always our strong
suit. (It’s very important to us to remember to give even amidst all this
struggle because the church still has bills that need to be paid, salaries that
need to be paid, and community services that they want to provide.)
6.
Pay off car!
PASS: I’m
very pleased to say that we paid our last car payment and already received our
pink slip! This goal is fully completed and met!
7.
Once The Husband’s car is paid off, put $345 payment
into savings each month towards a new car fund.
Pass: So far, so good. In every month since our last
payment, I have made sure to deposit the “car payment” into our savings. We are
seeing good growth in our savings account!
8.
Save $5000 above and beyond my “normal savings”
or any car savings.
Pass: We have met this goal! And continue to
add to it! I know our refinance helped but we still met the goal!
9.
Meal plan 8 months out of the year.
Null
and void: Due to a world-wide
pandemic, this goal got pushed to the wayside. We have been nothing but home
for the last six months so meal planning hasn’t been a priority. I may revisit
this goal next year but it all depends on the state of the world, literall.
10.
Assuming I can meet all of the above goals, my last
goal would be to increase my savings rate.
Pass: I
would actually give us a pass on this because we are putting our regular amount
in savings plus working on completing a $5000 challenge, plus we put half of
our unexpected money towards savings. We have also increased our long term
savings rates by increasing our retirement contributions.
As I think these posts are only going to get longer as the
year progresses, I have decided to split them up into two posts. I will publish
them during the same week but even half of them are a lot to get through!
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