February 19th, 2008 - Update on 2008 goals
I’m participating in Living-Deliberately’s challenge to update our year goals. I’ve only posted financial ones, so that’s all I’ll address.
- Give 2% of gross income to charity. Have stuck with this! Haven’t actually sent out much to charities, but it’s in the budget so I can’t touch it.
- Save 16% for retirement. Despite changing our budget to accommodate adoption expenses, we remain committed to this one. I even did it with the back pay received this month (the state budget wasn’t resolved until long after the new fiscal year ended. The pay increase was retroactive about 6 months) by sending an additional withdrawal to Eric’s IRA.
- Payoff HEL–this one’s going to be done long before October. After additional payments last month (from money saved for electrical work we aren’t going to do) and this month (money saved towards tax payment that isn’t needed), we’re looking at April or May (last payment will be 1/3rd of the monthly one so I might just do it in April to get it over with).
- Maintain fully funded (3 months expenses) emergency fund. We’re moving it out of CDs as the mature, just in case we need it for adoption expenses, but we intend to not touch it. We’ll get a HELOC first.
- Keep grocery and household spending under $300. So far so good. Jan’s were both over 1/3 under budget. But in Feb, we had to buy diapering supplies for MaggieMaggie, and that was almost the entire household budget. They simply all ran out at the same time. Potting training is going very slowly, so we still need diapers. And, unfortunately, she’s about out of the one size we didn’t buy at the beginning of the month.
- Start new car/car repair fund. I’ll let you know come August. But we have said we won’t dip into this money, either, for the adoption, in case of car repairs.
- Earn at least $25/month from Deal Barbie Pays I did get money in Feb, due to hard work in Dec. But then I was sick in Jan and got into a series of books that I just don’t want to stop reading in the evenings. So I haven’t kept up on this. I did, however, do testing, so will still have money coming in. If I include rebates, I have made $25/month, but I’m not sure I can count that?
In full disclosure: I probably wouldn’t have updated my progress if she wasn’t giving away a free resuable grocery bag. I just can’t resist them!
February 25th, 2008 at 2:38 pm EST
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