Come join me! Please leave a comment below of what your financial goals are this year! Let’s work together to achieve them.
I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July. We had a stressful one. We were out of power for over 108 hours starting on the Friday before and didn’t get it back until the morning of the 4th. Thankfully we had generator power thanks to my wonderful husband. But it was limited and so very hot. After we got back online getting posts done has had to be put on the back burner. I needed to take care of my family and get some things done. I’m glad I’m back.
2012 Savings Challenge
Our financial goals for 2012:
Short term goals
Refinancing our mortgage.
DONE!
Finding a financial adviser
Still need to work on this one. I need to get my ducks in a row.
Save towards a vacation or 2?
We got to enjoy a vacation! It was amazing! We used our savings for that but it looks like we have to wait a bit longer before we do another one. We need to cut back a bit more on our spending in order to reach this goal. This might be on hold.
New Goal! Cutting our Grocery Bill again!
Groceries lately are eating at our expenses because my boys are drinking a lot of milk and we are being so good about eating better. We are eating a lot of veggies, and fresh fruits. I’m so proud that we are eating better but being on a single income now and feeding 5 on our budget has been a big challenge. I increased the budget but we are still over spending. Now I’m trying to figure out other ways to cut back.
Pet Costs have increased
Our cats are getting older and have some behavioral issues so we are working on that. It’s the stress of having kids. It has also been something I haven’t wanted to concentrate on. So I’m helping them. The costs this month will be well over $500 for the consult, vet bill, food and other materials. Thankfully this won’t be a routine so I might consider this an emergency expense for us. I will be increasing the budget for them due to the increase in food costs.
Long Term goals:
Saving for a car.
This will have to be a smaller savings as we go forward.
Saving more for retirement.
This is one of the topics I will be asking the financial planner when we interview them.
Saving more for college.
This is the next topic I want to ask the financial planner. We are investing the minimum in our kids 529k plan but how much should we try and save after our retirement above? Or should we take the additional we would have put towards retirement and put it towards college savings?
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