Can you believe it’s February already? Where did the month go? For those of you on the debt repayment bandwagon, how are things coming along? What steps have you taken this year to get closer to your goal?
Goals Are Necessary, if You Want to be Debt-Free
A lot of people say they want pay off all their debt, so they can live a debt-free lifestyle. My guess is that a much smaller number actually accomplish what they intend to do. Why?
Many times it’s because they lack a plan. I know lack of planning has impeded my progress towards debt repayment more times than I care to confess.
Without goals, the thought of paying off debt remains a dream – something you’d like to accomplish someday. Unfortunately when it comes to dreams, people find it easy to put off taking action. There are no action steps laid out. No deadlines to accomplish the action. A dream remains a nice idea, but it never turns into reality.
By setting goals, we can define the actions that need to happen and put them on a timeline. The best goals are SMART goals: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. Once we define our goals, we can get down to the work of reaching them.
What I’ve Done Towards My Goal of Paying Off Debt
January was a productive month for me. I accomplished the two goals I set for myself last month. I tracked every dollar that left our bank account in YNAB 3, so I have an excellent idea of where to move forward and cut expenses.
I also worked hard on trimming our food bill. I made a conscious effort to only shop for things we needed. I tried to only buy things on sale, and I tried to match sales with coupons, for the greatest savings.
What I’ll be Doing This Month Toward my Goal of Paying Off Debt
It’s a new month and time to set some new goals.
Goal #1: This is a maintenance goal, because all too often I get into trying something new, and old habits come back to haunt me. So this month I will continue to be intentional about shopping. I will match coupons to sales, and I will increase my grocery stockpile.
By the end of the month, I want to have a week’s worth of extra food in the house, including food for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. I’m going to bump the grocery budget up to $400 this month, so I can work on my stockpile. Spending more seems counterproductive, but having a good stockpile enables greater grocery savings, because I won’t HAVE to buy anything. I will have the luxury of being able to buy everything on sale.
Goal #2: Now that I’ve tracked my expenses, it’s time to make a budget and stick to it. I will make a budget it YNAB 3 by Friday, and I will stick to the budget this month.
Goal #3: We need to replenish the emergency fund. We had a couple of emergencies that took our balance below our comfort zone. Before we start paying off debt, we need to rebuild the emergency fund, so we don’t go into debt if there’s an emergency.
I’m entering the month armed with my coupon binder, YNAB 3, lots of coupons, and a plan. How about you? What are your goals this month?
Photo by Matt Denton.
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We’ve almost finished paying for our car’s engine repair from last October. That was a major expense and completely necessary because we live in an area that does not have public transportation. When we make the last payment on that bill, the money used for it is going to be rolled over into another expense we have almost paid off, then THAT money will roll into the next. Debt snowballs are a good thing. Meantime, we are still putting money into our emergency fund. So, we have goals and are on track.
I’m looking forward to our tax refund to pay off the rest of our non-mortgage debt and to start our emergency fund. Then I will use the former monthly loan payment to bump up our tithing amount. I know it’s better not to get a large tax refund and we have to adjust our W2′s, but I’m not going to complain about this blessing from God!
My goal for January was to track every penny, which I did except for maybe $20 of hubby’s money. It’s hard to get every last vending machine purchase out of him! We shopped only for what we “needed” or got extremely cheap at the grocery store. We spent about $175 in groceries for the month of January, but $150 eating out and another $168 eating out due to what I’d call “Entertainment Expenses”. We got free tickets to the Phoenix Coyotes hockey games and the ASU hockey game – value about $450 in free tickets so we spent more than we should have on “entertainment eating out”. Not normal for our family, but we loved every minute of it! So in summary, I learned we need to curb our eating out spending. So in February we will be doing no entertainment eating out. Free tickets or not, the answer is no! We paid off 1 credit card in December and another in January so I’m pretty happy. The debt snowball theory works! Goal for February – throw our daughter a 3rd birthday party for very little money and throw my husband a HUGE Surprise 30th bday party and still be able to sink some extra money towards debt in February. That my be difficult, but check out my blog to see how I’ll do it! Thanks for your posts. I love reading you!
Hi Lynnae,
I always love your posts! You make it so interesting by being specific. I read a lot of frugal-living blogs but they’re not always interesting because of generalities.
For this year, we’re still plugging away on debt repayment. It’s slowly getting there. We’re still trying to pay off student loans from our daughter’s college — only about $5,000 left there I think. I’d like to pay these off first, then our vehicle (we’d been debt-free on vehicles for several years, then had a bad streak of luck on cars last year!) then the mortgage. We’ve also got to pay off our hospital bill from my husband having a bout with kidney stones.
We still have set-backs but I can see we’re slowly climbing out. I think it’s about direction not necessarily perfection!
Blessings!
Participating in the Eat From Your Pantry Challenge allowed me to save $127 in my Save 2010 in 2010 jar. I only spent $25 on groceries in January. I plan on doing the same this month. I have a large food pantry and storage area. I was able to pay the last payment on a vacuum and will have $70 a month to put towards an emergency fund. I live on a very low fixed budget and am unemployed without any unemployment benefits. I am going to take your idea on making monthly goals and post them on my refrigerator. This month I will find employment SO BE IT! Thanks for the inspiration.
I am going to try and eat at home more. I have been fairly good for the last two weeks and like you, I have been trying to stockpile some groceries when they are on sale. However, since I am trying to eat better – coupons are usually out on fresh produce and meats. I do look for the meats that are on sale.
In February, I will continue cooking more meals at home- only brought fast food twice in January. And I will check the pantry before going to the store because “I have to have an ingredient to cook.’ I made pizza sauce with canned tomato sauce, beef base bouillon, and some Italian seasoning – it was great! I used my credit card in December – paid it off in January. But I would like to go a month without using it at all. You really do spend more when you use plastic instead of cash.
Powerball has come to Washington. I had being buying a Mega ticket twice a week – it’s only $2.00, right? But this month I will not buy any lotto tickets.
I think it is good February is a short month.
I am workingon eating up the freezer stuff, cleaning out the cupboards by eating from them and the freezer only, and staying out of the grocery store for the whole month unless the coupon is just too good to pass up – like Tillamook Cheese babyloaf for $3.99 this week…. :)
I’ll eat the greens that are still in the garden rather than get anything from the grocery store (carrots, kolhrabi, swiss chard, celery, kales, cabbage, onions, and maybe some dandylions will pop up!)
I will get some apples tho from the local fruit stand.
And I will get the seeds started for my garden transplants – and I’ll work in my garden to get it ready for the early crops, like peas, the first of March.
Last month I did not buy food out at all – and this month I will hope to continue that – including taking my brown bag lunches to work with me.