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Saturday, December 29, 2007

Realistic Goals for 2008

Oh sure, I can wish that I could lose 30 pounds by my birthday or to become completely debt free -- but those aren't goals -- those are WISHES. Looking at me - looking at my debt totals you would know that I couldn't REALISTICALLY do either! LOL So I had to sit down and come up with a list of "Realistic Goals" of what I want to accomplish for 2008.

1. Little Bit of Payoff! Ding 1, 2 & 3 on my debt list should be erased by mid February with a CD that matures. These are the first debts that I placed into my snowball spreadsheet, so this will be the first time I will actually see a snowball roll to the tune of $450 a month. NICE!

2. Cash Please! We've tried this before to go COLD TURKEY on credit card using. Thank God, because the debt to be paid off would probably be about 10k more than it is now! Anyhow, we've been living within our means since JULY 2007. My goal is to keep on the plan and to not slack off with my using my envelopes!

3. EMERGENCY! If you've been reading my blogs you will know that I have 3 senior cats. 2 of which are miracles living to 20 years old. Stupidly I never really budgeted vet bills because I've been quite lucky and haven't been plagued with a lot of vet bills until THIS YEAR! I want to get a separate EF for those guys! I think 2008 may be a bumpy road for me.

4. Give me a Break! Okay, so there won't be a full fledged VACATION planned for a while as we lop off more and more of our debt for the big payday - HOWEVER - we will need a little break - maybe a weekend or even an overnight someplace fun. That is what we plan to do with the "Change Jar" funds.

5. Supplemental Income! My grocery store recently changed their coupon policies which USED to be that they would take expired coupons up to 6 months out. No more. I had a perfect strategy for organizing my coupons and would save HUGE every week because I had coupons for just about everything that I needed to buy - and if there was a SALE...LOOKOUT! Well, I have to work on a new strategy for my couponing and hope for the best! I also dibble in rebates - but I think I should pay more attention to rebating. Online surveys and paid email things I usually go crazy close to Christmas to try to earn spending money, but I'm going to try to get the most of everything I can get there too. Come April - August, my job picks up so I won't struggle so much.

6. Go Surfing! I have to double check, but I think one of my debts teaser rates ends this year -- so once that happens I will surf balances onto a card with a low "for life" APR. The last two credit cards are pretty up there and I won't be paying them off in the next 12 months.

That's it. My Realistic Goals. In a nutshell -- KEEP IT UP!

2 comments:

Kris said...

Those look great! Dh and I are sitting down this weekend to plan out our money goals for 2008, too.

And your goals are realistic, too - no "I will pay off $40,000 in debt by April". ;) Keep it simple, and the rest will come.

Great job!

Wendy said...

I figure keep it simple and if we come up with some nice windfall of extra cash... SO BE IT! :)

I'll keep an eye out for your goals, Kris.