March 20 for 2020 Goal Check-In Part One

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!

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. We had a several unexpected windfalls and put half of each towards debt plus made our regularly scheduled payments. So, again, I would say 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.

2. Track our family spending every other month of the year.

Pass: We tracked January and it wasn’t pretty. I’m hopeful for March. We will need to be diligent in tracking our spending. It will be a busy month with dance competitions and the high school baseball season starting. I’m hoping we are too busy to spend too much money!

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…

      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 have already bought several Christmas presents and I’m happy the money was there to use. So far we are on track but it’s early times yet.

5. Church Tithing. My goal is to donate $300 EVERY. SINGLE. MONTH.

Pass: So far so good. We donated $300 in January and February. 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.

6. Pay off car!

PASS: I’m very pleased to say that we paid our last car payment and now are just awaiting our pink slip! I’m super excited and am very happy to be “car debt” free… (for as long as that lasts).  We haven’t done this yet, but we did make our January payment and have one payment left in February until we own the car outright!

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 February, we paid off our car. The final payment was $295. Since we budget $350, I put the remaining $55 into our savings account. March’s “payment” is budgeted for already too!

8.  Save $5000 above and beyond my “normal savings” or any car savings.

On-track: I have deposited the first 14 weeks into savings and budgeted for the next 4 after that. Additionally, we received several unexpected windfalls that we split between debt and savings, so we deposited an unexpected $3433 into our savings. After only 2 months we are 69% of the way towards fully meeting this goal! Feeling confident about this one!

       9. Meal plan 8 months out of the year.

On-track: So far I have planned our meals for every month this year! Including March! I’m feeling on a roll here! As our lives get busier and more hectic with kids sports and activities and the end of the school year nearing, we always do better when we have a plan! It’s nice to have an idea of what we will have for dinner and knowing we have the ingredients on-hand!

       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. Thinking good thoughts on this one!

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!