My 2008 Goals: An Update
Posted by Lynnae on February 1, 2008
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Wipeout! That’s how I feel about my progress toward my 2008 financial goals so far.
Glblguy at Gather Little by Little recently posted an update to his 2008 financial goals. He didn’t meet his goal for January, but he learned a lot and is confident that he will be back on track in February. Then he "picked on" me to share my progress on my 2008 goals. I may have to borrow his positive attitude, because so far my progress has not been stellar.
My first 2008 financial goal was to read one personal finance book every month this year. Right now I’m about halfway through my first book, Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin. You notice I’m not finished. And it’s February first. I plan on catching up this weekend and getting a book review ready to go next week. And I fully intend to get back on track and finish another book by the end of February. I still haven’t decided what my next book will be, but I have a few on hand to choose from.
I told you about the rest of my financial goals for 2008 in my post A Look Ahead: Goals for the New Year. My first goal was to pay off my credit card debt by September. I’m pleased to report that I’m on track to do that. I owe $1162.53 (though I’m disputing $62.53), and I’ve been paying $200 a month toward that debt every month, so I’m on track to have that paid off before September.
Next, I wanted to create a budget and stick to it. I got off to a good start at the beginning of January by creating a budget in Y-NAB. For the first week, I was really good about tracking my expenses. Then I got lazy and stopped tracking for a couple of weeks. I was also very disorganized, and I actually paid my electric bill a day late this month. All in all, we spent $700 more than we brought in. At first I was devastated, but my husband reminded me that we had received a $641 Tax Kicker Refund Check in December that we had saved for a car repair. We paid $608 for the car repair in January, so in reality, we were only over budget by around $100. Still that’s $100 more over budget than I want to be.
I also wanted to limit eating out to 4 times a month. I’m sorry to report that we failed miserably this month. I wish I had a great excuse, but basically we got lazy. I think my family got burnt out on scrimping and saving while my husband’s job situation was uncertain. As soon as he was working regular hours again, we stopped tracking the budget, stopped worrying about how much we were eating out, and basically did everything I warn against on this blog. Perhaps we were a little too gazelle intense in December and should have taken a little vacation before we ended up blowing things as badly as we did.
Regardless of the reason, I confess that we really blew the eating out budget in January. In fact, we were $100 over budget…almost exactly the amount we overspent. I apologize for setting such a bad example and promise to do better in February. I’ve put some systems in place to avoid blowing it so badly in February. I set my Google calendar to remind me to track the budget weekly and pay my bills.
My last three goals were to save 5% of our income, get health insurance, and update our will. Obviously since we spent more than we earned, I didn’t save anything this month. We still don’t have health insurance, though we will qualify to get some through my husband’s employer at the beginning of April. And I haven’t updated our will yet.
I’d like to take a moment to thank you all for holding me accountable. As painful as it is to write that I really messed up this month, it would be even more painful if I didn’t have you all to keep me on the straight and narrow. I want to be able to come back at the beginning of March and report that February was a success. If you weren’t all here cheering me on and taking me to task for blowing it, I might just throw in the towel and give up on my goals. But in large part because of you, I am going to keep on keepin’ on and do better next month.
And now I get to pick on some more people for updates to their goals.
- Ana at DebtFREE-Revolution was going to pay off her truck note by March or April. Are you still on track?
- Free From Broke was going to put $8000 into his 401k. How’s the saving going?
- Single Guy was going to pay an extra $200 a month on his car loan. How did January go?
- Pinyo at Moolanomy was going to reduce his household utility bill by 10% or $35 a month. Did you reduce your bill in January?
How about you? Did you set any financial goals for this year? What were they, and how are you doing? Even if you fell off the wagon, so to speak, it’s not a complete failure. Adjust and get back on track!
Photo by Laram777.
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21 Responses to “My 2008 Goals: An Update”
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- » Tagged For Financial Goal of Paying Off the Truck Note » DebtFREE-Revolution
- I Missed My Goal, Dealing With Failure | Moolanomy
- The Road to Debt Reduction is Filled With Stoplights
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I am not a financial expert. I'm just a wife and mom doing the best I can to live a frugal life and get out of debt. Like any human, I make mistakes. I write this blog out of my own experiences, and nothing I write should be taken as expert advice. If you need financial advice, please consult a professional.
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We ate out WAY more than we should have this month as well…
I actually wrote it down when we did eat out, on my big planning schedule on the refrigerator… so there is no denying it to myself!
We’re going to step it up in February. Consistency wins the race. (And at least it’s a shorter month, less chance to mess up)!
Well done for admitting where you went wrong. But don’t worry too much - everyone makes mistakes - and we’re all here to support you whenever you need it. Good luck for the coming month!
@ Beth - Thanks for the support!
I’m reading Your Money or Your Life as well. It’s a lot thicker then I thought, that is I really don’t want to just skim through the pages. I just got to the ‘track every dollar spent’ part though I skipped the first two for now as I really have no clue, even estimate wise where my money is going.
I am doing just about as well as you.
I will share my result on Tuesday.
Hang in there on the book, Your Money or Your Life. The last couple chapters really tie things together, and provide the mechanics for building up your investment income. The middle of the book was a tough read, but it’s worth it. If you are interested in a lighter read for your next book, Zen to Done is an excellent ebook on personal productivity (something I resolved to improve). I’ve got an offer up on my website if you are interested.
I’m in the middle of Your Money or Your Life now, and for me the beginning was difficult to get into. Maybe it’s because I do most of the beginning steps already. But now that I’m in the middle of it, I’m much more interested. I’m heading out to buy graph paper for my income/expense chart today. Is it lame that I’m excited about that?
You can do it! I can’t wait to hear that you’ve paid off your debt. I few more meals at home should guarantee success
Don’t worry Lynnae, you are in good company! We are like a train wreck and my goals are all helter-skelter. I like the idea of Febuary being a short month! I am going to set some goals. We did 80% better on not eating out this month, because I hit that meat sale before Christmas. Guess what? It’s about gone!
! We’ll see how Feb goes! We are going to have lots of money coming in and I am praying to be a good money steward!
Read an interesting book from a friend, God is in the Small Stuff, kind of don’t sweat the small stuff for Christians, page 85 really stuck out at me. He says
“Humans are funny beings… we want everything… bigger better faster. Then we discovered outward material things don’t make us happy. So we’ve turned inwards. We attack it with the same zest that we put to acquiring things. Like a crazy pendulum we swing madly to other way. yet somehow feel empty at both ends.”
The problem is, and I agree, is we want it all and we want it know. Like the old saying. “God give me patience and give it to me NOW.”
He says the key is balance consistency and perseverance all which come from one thing discipline. It takes time to change habits and ways of thinking. You have to tweak and try out till you find a budget plan that works for you.
I switched to YNAB in January 2008 as well. I just finished entering everything into the Register for January, and was still shocked that despite our best efforts, we were way over budget.
Part of our problem is that we are both students, so beginning of semester costs make the months of January and August look skewed. However, like many of the above comments noted, I am looking forward to the short month of February to give our budgeting the boost we both need!
The important thing is to get right back up and jump back in. One issue that happens with new budgets is that sometimes we get too agressive. If you were eating out 20 a month (I hope not but it is for reference) and you went to 10 it would feel very harsh, but if you were at 10 and went to 8…not so much.
In other words…don’t be a gazzelle that trips and breaks its legs!
The other problem I’m finding with a newer budget is that I haven’t had a year to save for things that are due now. Like this month we have to renew the registration on one of our cars, and instead drawing from the money we’ve saved in our budget, we have to try to fit the whole expense into this month’s budget.
Heh…way to early for me to talk about meeting my 2008 financial goals. It’s only one month in and one of my financial predictions made in an entry at the start of this year has already been broken (it was about gas prices)
Oh man, I’ve been tagged and now I’m being held accountable! I’ll post an update for my 401(k) goal shortly.
One thing to keep in mind, in general, is that a goal is a mark to shoot for. It may be ok not to reach it. A book a month sounds great but maybe you will be better off taking more time to digest each book and put it into practice, especially since these are personal finance books? Just a thought.
Thanks for the tag!