What is your frugal/financial resolution?

[AdinaL]

I don't, as a rule, make resolutions, but this year I am resolved to pay off the credit debt, come hell or high water.

Did you make any financial or frugal resolutions for you or your family?

[pattimomma]

Mine is the same as yours!

Here is the list:

Wells Fargo Credit Card $2,196

BoA Credit Card $2,807

Kid's Braces $2,268

*Student Loan $1,000

Dentist $158

Total $8,429

Additional I would like to pay off, but the above takes priority.

Car loan $10,000
 

*This is only one of my student loans. The other loans are consolidated and I am on the Income Based Repayment Plan.

[AdinaL]

Heh your look much more doable than mine. We have about $18k in debt. That does not count student loans. Those are in the range of $75k.

[pattimomma]

If you count my car then it is right there with your 18k. My student loans are 107k! That's why I am on Income Based Repayment. I work for a nonprofit organization so hopefully my student loan debt will get forgiven after 10yrs of on time payments. What student loan payment plan are you on?
 

[AdinaL]

30yr plan. Woo. Cheapest plan available through our consolidator. Still nearly $400/mo.

[pattimomma]

Were your loans through private companies? Mine were all federal and I only pay $10 per month!
 

[zebra15]

To live within my means.  Plain and simple 

[mamarhu]

I set it up to have $100/paycheck (2 per month) put into savings. No easy access. Painless.
 

[Christine08]

My resolution is to finally get a budget together. Life always seems to get in the way.   We just got our house refinanced so that was a huge step and just bought a new car (after paying off another). So, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed but DH says it's manageable so that helps. We've been through a busy time with our business and buying and remodeling this house/property over the last two years. Things seem to be settling so I'm going to try to finally get a budget written up that's doable (this has been a resolution for a couple of years though). I'm hoping this will reduce my stress over money/finances.

[3timesamom]

Why are you using a consolodation place? It is almost always better to pay the debts yourself.

[AdinaL]

Student loan consolidation. Not credit card consolidation. Student loans consolidation got us a 3% interest rate and one payment a month vs 6% and three payments. I agree that CC consolidation is a bad plan.

[mrsmischief]

My husband and I are striving to cut our living expenses down to half of his salary to allow for more aggressive savings and to be more deliberate in using the money we do spend. We've been working towards this idea of "graceful frugality" for several years now, both practically and philosophically speaking, and now seems the perfect time to strive harder as we've killed much of the desires to do the whole Consumer Extraordinaire and keep up with the Jonses thing. 

It is also my hope to introduce better financial education to my daughter this year, helping her learn such concepts as true value over price and why we make some of the choices we do as a family. I was recently in a store with her when she asked why I had said no to opening up a credit card and realized as I explained my anti-cc conviction to her that I am not doing as well as I could with this aspect of family frugality and teaching values. It seems almost foolish to strive to model good behavior without providing her with the insight as to why certain choices are being made. Both aspects go hand in hand to provide a full picture. 

[ashleyhaugh]

I'm going to do those surveys on the bottom of receipts.... they only take a minute, and someone has to win the $1000, lol

also need to try to keep the debt down. I'm in a cycle of pay down my few little credit cards with my financial aid each semester, then by the end of the semester, I'm using them to float me til the next payment comes in.... sigh....thankfully they've all got very low limits, lol

[pollyanna02]

I'm going to finish off my car loan. I have a car loan and student loan. the car loan is 240/month figure if i get it paid off i could up the payments on the student loan and pay that off by the end of the yr. once they are both paid off I will be able to save for a down payment on a house. :)

[delightedbutterfly]

Our goal is to start retirement savings and save for some of the things that DH finds fun.

He took a new job that has him making significantly more but he's also away from the house more. On a slow week this doesn't really affect us. On busy weeks/jobs he could be in camp and away for three weeks+ or he could just be working hours which mean he never sees the kids. The last couple months he has had really cushy shifts and has been able to see us a lot and also took some time off at Christmas. But with all the work comes his desire to do some more "living" instead of the "living pay to pay" we did the first 8 years of our relationship.

So saving for retirement and then saving for a couple trips a year is our goals.

[Catholic Mama]

Mine is to eat out less. Last semester of our children's school year, we did drive thru often after school, and not even for dinner - just as a snack. That really added up and now we don't have as much to spend for the new year. Our children won't starve if we wait until we get home from school to eat some fruit, carrots, crackers, etc. instead of doing drive thru.

[Ragana]

Originally Posted by ashleyhaugh 

I'm going to do those surveys on the bottom of receipts.... they only take a minute, and someone has to win the $1000, lol

 

Love this

Enter in-store drawings, too - I have won a hibachi grill we take camping and an American Girl doll doing those. Plus a $50 Home Depot card filling out a survey. Not a financial plan, obviously! but fun to occasionally win something.

I haven't completely prioritized my goals yet, but basically here's what I want to do:

* get to a $10k emergency fund by the end of the year - on track if I keep our automatic withdrawal to savings at the same amount all year

* cut back spending (TV, phone, mindless/lazy eating out - have to scrounge around for other stuff) that is not fulfilling so that the four of us can keep taking the fun classes that are fulfilling to us: me - exercise, DH - guitar, DD1 - yoga, DD2 - pottery and music

* keep paying down CC and student loans - I have accepted that this will be a long-term process and try not to stress about that too much. On the plus side, we own our cars outright and plan to run them into the ground.

* finance in cash a summer vacation to see DH's family. I know according to some plans all that fun stuff should be put on hold while we pay stuff off, but although we have read & take inspiration from Dave Ramsey, that's not the way we have decided to do it. It's important that our kids have a close relationship to the relatives who live far away. Considering doing this by train instead of flying!

Also, I saw this on another thread:

http://pinchthisstretchthat.com/52-week-savings-challenge-week-1/ (see the printout for a better explanation)

Basically you save $1 per week, adding $1 for every week that goes by (so $1 in the first week, $52 in the last week) and end up with over $1k at the end of the year. I may try to do this until the end of November as sort of a "Christmas club" savings plan. I would still end up with $1,128, which would more than fund Xmas gifts with some left over for a water park getaway.

Good luck with 2013 goals, everyone!

Edited by Ragana - 1/13/13 at 11:45am

[phathui5]

To live within our means, like zebra15. Also, to get some money into savings; we don't have any cushion right now.

[colsxjack]

We have a few:\

* revisit our budget and do better at sticking to it

* eat out less often and cook from the freezer/pantry more. No sense having food in the freezer if you don't use it to lessen weekly grocery shopping.

* In two more months I will be done paying off student loans!!! We have paid $800 - $1300 / month for the past 5 years. We have decided, instead of absorbing that money onto our lives, that we will continue to have that money go out each month. Half into a savings fund to finance a visit to my partners family and half into debt and then savings.

* go slower on the home renovations so as not to wrack up so much debt. We have a lot we need to do, and a lot we want to do to this house. We will stretch it out longer and save as much as possible between projects to reduce debt.

[gypsymama2008]

Oooh!  What a great idea!

I have three:

1. I want to stop eating out so much.  We've been so bad about that this year, while I was pregnant I had absolutely zero interest in cooking-I did sometimes, but we got in the bad habit of eating out a ton.  Now that he's born I've kinda gotten my cooking mojo back so I want to get back on track with meal planning and the like.

2. Have a no spend month.  I want one month where we have no frivolous spending (only buy the stuff we need, not the stuff we just want).

3. Actually save some money.  Between having a baby this year, eating out so much, and buying a used car-we ended up with the same amount in savings as we had last year :(  

It's nice to clarify this stuff and actually write it down!