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G.O.O.D. January '05 thread- Let's go!

4K views 81 replies 30 participants last post by  kerc 
#1 ·
OK mamas, I am starting this a day early so that we can all list our GOOD New Years resolutions!

Here are mine:
#1- pay bills when they arrive, not right before they are due

#2- put a small amount toward savings before I put extra toward the CCs

#3- remember that this is a long-term thing for me, and not get stressed by the seeming un-ending debt.

WE CAN DO THIS MAMAS! Let's go!
 
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#2 ·
*My goals right now is to try to send just alittle bit more than I normally do to credit cards. Even if it is just $5 more.

*Not get discouraged with the balances going down so slowly

*Put away a tiny bit in our family savings
 
#3 ·
I am new at this, but so far mine are:

*Pay bills on time, not when the shut off notice comes.

*Keep track of every dime I spend.

*Stop wasting money on temporary things. Be smarter and more discerning about what I buy. Spend money on more quality items, not on things like eating out. I can blow $25 on a mediocre meal out, or I can blow $15 at the grocery store and get enough quality ingredients so serve a few really enjoyable meals, for example. On the whole, if I am going to spend my money, I want something to show for it. My house is full of junky furniture and hardcover books I could have borrowed from the library. I would have been better off borrowing the books and spending more on household items that last and look nicer.

Oops, that last one was like 5-in-1. :LOL
 
#7 ·
subbing with moving I lost track of the last one
My resolutions for this year finacially are

*stick to my goals! (i'm very good at making a plan but changing it at the last second)
*use our tax returns for debt
*Pay myself first

My motivation is when we are down to only Dh's car as our debt we are going to try for another baby, I'm hoping we can do it in a year I have a plan but if you see resolution one a plan doesn't always mean something.
 
#8 ·
My January goals are to ---

keep to budget, including food budget (I tend to splurge on food)
pay all bills on time, including CC bills
cancel cable tv

This last week we paid off 3 of 5 CC and I will be paying off a fourth in March, but until then I will pay the minimum. After CCs are paid I am moving onto a hospital and dentist bill I have to pay down.

I am also going to take some time this month to "story board" my goals by writing down in detail what I want and why I am trying to GOOD and save money, etc.

Best of luck to all of us!
 
#9 ·
My goals for this month(Jan)~
*go to snap, and open a savings account*
*put at least $10 a week into savings(I know this is piddly...but we have shut off notices, and so much going out right now that it is all I can muster up)
*get copies of our credit reports*
*see my friend's hubby(he's a financial advisor, and does free consults)about what the best way to go about this is*
*pay all of our minimums on time*
*keep track of every penny we spend...will give dh a notebook too.
*fast food only once a week or less(we have been grabbing the .99 deal where ever a lot lately...but it really adds up, and I HAVE to start budgeting our fs better...I just hope my energy levels stay up so I can cook and clean with the new babe and everything...having a rough time.


Long term goals:
*pay off anything/everything in collections*
*pay off school loans*
*learn to budget*(I know this is number one!!!)
*learn to save*

*help the kids to learn about earning/spending/saving money*
I would love to have all our debt paid off in the next 2-5 years, and be buying a house within 10(once we have good credit).
 
#10 ·
I'm new on this thread, so hi all


My goals for the new year are:
  1. Sell all the furniture and stuff we don't need to raise some cash
  2. Sell our flat and move into a rented flat (This lets DH work less hours so we can see each other again)
  3. Pay off my midwife
  4. Clear all debts with the sale of our flat - I know it sounds a bit drastic but it's the only way we can manage it!
 
#11 ·
kunama... I think selling your place to get rid of your debt is very smart... we were trying to do this ourselves and are overloaded with things that need to be done before selling. There are no less than 4 unfinished construction projects in our house...


My resolutions for JANUARY (not the whole year) are:

* Get our budget into stealth mode.

* Clear out, organize and clean this house (which will take until March)... and sell anything of value to raise cash; but throw out things that don't "bless the home" and properly store/label the things we feel we MUST keep. (the raising cash part is the G.O.O.D. part!)

* Get our 2nd home rented. (this is the place we were moving TO when we thought we were moving THIS year... we can only carry it for about 10 months before it gets dangerous).

* Get DH involved in the money... because if I die tomorrow, he'll be so lost!
 
#13 ·
i haven't yet sorted out goals...other than learn to put things off till I have the $$ to pay for them. I am such an instant gratification person that my cc debt began as "this is such a good deal and I get paid next week..." and then low and behold I could never pay the balances.

For the newbies here -- I think most of us long term members of the thread recommend "your money or your life" get it at the library. I don't know that I totally agree with the long term investment sections at the end, but heck I don't have much $$ to put in my savings account, never mind spend. Small steps will get me there.

I'm a grad student and hoping that both hubby and I finish the phd in 2005 and manage to find a job. We just consolidated our loans and to pay in 10 yrs on the standard plan our payments are more than our house pmts
 
#14 ·
All of your goals sound so great that I am taking them all into account as I slowly see where we started getting into this great debt we are in. This year I want to:
1. Keep working our c.c. debt down to a less scary amount
2. Pay bills ontime and not have absolute $0 or negative $$ after our bills our paid
3. Put a little money aside for the kids or at least give a small allowance to oldest dd so she can learn to manage money
4. Get rid of unnecessary expenses
 
#15 ·
Hello everyone!

So far I have not made any concrete resolutions. I want to spend less on extras (yet DH got another cell phone for Xmas
). I want to pay of more of our debt since we would like to TTC in 2005 and I don't want tons of debt over our heads. I want to save for a house and we would like to move. All of the replies have given me food for thought. I will post later once I have sorted out my goals.
 
#18 ·
Maybe some of you already know to do this, but I found an extra hundred dollars a month today by calling the electric company and asking for our billing to be changed to an average bill of all 12 months for each month. We use electric heat so during the winter months our bill is pretty high, but in the summer it is low. Now that we are on the average month payment plan, I can use the extra money each month from the winter bill to apply to my debt. Yeah!
We also cancelled our sattelite service today. DVD's from the library, here we come.
I am really excited about my new budget for the new year. 2 days down and no money spent! :LOL
 
#19 ·
You grrrls are always so inspiring to me! Okay, now I gotta think about this year's financial goals. This year already begins with some new debt (we are usually completely debt free except for our mortgage).

- Pay off dh's recent dentistry extravaganza (3 caps - ack!)
- Fully fund dh's Roth as early as possible
- Continue to pay down mortgage to this year's goal
- Deal with new roof leak and save some pennies for that come spring (we had a New Year's Day trip to Home Despot for a tarp - so that should last a while)
- Come to some sort of peace with moving to a cheaper area or building a barn at our house for dh's business
- Buy digital camera and learn how to use it, so I can get an ebay income stream in place
- Continue decluttering
- Continue selling books on amazon.com as an additional income trickle (made two extra mortgage payments last year!)

Let the games begin!
 
#20 ·
Hi, I am new to this thread! We just started on our new budget for the year and so far so good. We are using cash for everything in an effort to stop the overuse of our check and credit cards. That said, here are my goals:

*Stick to the new budget no matter what
*Put what I can on the CCs this month and work towards paying one off by March
*Work on a meal plan to rotate per month

We can do it!!
 
#21 ·
New to this thread....so very inspiring to read all of this!!!!

My financial goals for the new year are:
1)use all tax return money to pay down cc's
2)pay car payment bi-weekly(when dh is paid) and pay more than the minimum
3)save, save, save!!!!
4)open a savings account for each of the kids that gets a set amount each check to cover various expenses throughout the year
5)stick to our budget!!!!
6)give dh a cash budget each week

Mainly I want to get more organized so I can keep track of where everything goes...

YAY!
 
#22 ·
our goals:

- continue to use a weekly cash system for everything that is *not* a monthly bill and get it down to $160 a week.

- dh and I commit to our weekly "Domestic Management" meetings to check in on finances, plan/goal set for short, medium, and long term.

- continue to pay down cc's.

our update:

We are working on getting our house refinanced. We met with our loan agent last week, and if our house appraises for 252,000 we'll be able to pull out 25,000 to put toward cc's!! That will pay off the card that has our renovation balance (15,000) and almost an entire card that has debt we've been working on paying off since college
. If this happens, we will might even be able to be debt free by the end of 2005!! (ok, not including mortgage, my student loans, or our car. just cc's). But, oh my god, we are so excited we can hardly stand it. it is sooo motivating!! it all hinges on the appraisals. 252k might be a little high, but even if we can pull out 15,000 that will be huge. we'll get rid of our private mortgage insurance and our payment will only go up $100, but the minimums on the 2 cards are close to $500 a month, which we'll be able to use to pay off the remainders.

yippee!! great resolutions, mamas!!
 
#24 ·
Hi, I want to join in here just a bit too busy right now.

I did want to add that as I skimmed through the posts, I notices someone said they wanted to put money towards savings before paying the CCs.

This is a bad idea. If you have 10,000 credit card debt and 10,000 in savings you really have no money. You actually have less money because of the finance fees. You are getting charged interest on the total amount of you CCs and if you have 100$ in savings that you could pay down the CC with, then you will pay less interest.
You can always use the CC in an emergency but get them paid off.
 
#25 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by morebabies
I did want to add that as I skimmed through the posts, I notices someone said they wanted to put money towards savings before paying the CCs.

This is a bad idea. If you have 10,000 credit card debt and 10,000 in savings you really have no money. You actually have less money because of the finance fees. You are getting charged interest on the total amount of you CCs and if you have 100$ in savings that you could pay down the CC with, then you will pay less interest.
You can always use the CC in an emergency but get them paid off.
Actually, Dave Ramsey (Financial Peace University) recommends establishing an emergency fund of at least $1000 first. He also advocates allocating charity/church/giving money and savings money first in the budget. Then pay on your debt, using a debt snowball in which you pay the smallest balance off first, then apply that amount toward the next smallest debt, and so on. This is done regardless of the finance charges involved.

The reasoning for this is fairly simple. It is much more encouraging to have an emergency fund in the bank for simple small emergencies. It keeps you from continuing to charge. Also, the debt snowball concept is to keep one motivated, and paying off balances and closing accounts is tremendously motivating and energizing. The money you would 'save' by being smart about the interest rates and so forth is really a drop in the bucket if you are serious about eliminating debt. In the whole scheme of things, it won't matter all that much if you are paying off your debt in a fast period of time.
 
#26 ·
I'm new to this thread too. Hi everyone.


My goals are pretty much the same as everyone else's:
1. Pay bills when they arrive
2. Pay ahead when possible (or pay slightly more than is owed)
3. Make frugal purchases - no impulse buys
4. Don't eat out when I can eat at home instead

ETA: Those worksheets are great, thanks to the PP who linked to those!
 
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