by Tricia
At 11:50 p.m. on December 31, 2006, I posted our goals for 2007. I’ve been meaning to take a peek at those goals and see how things were going in July. Well, now it’s halfway through November so I better see how things are going. Perhaps I’ll have to kick things up a notch to meet these goals by December 31, 2007. (The goals are in the quotes – my notes follow.)
Debt Goal – I would like to pay off at least $12,000 more of our debt in 2007. To account for monthly finance charges, we’ll probably have to pay around $1,100/month to make it happen.
Ouch. I know we haven’t paid $1,100/month to our debt. At the end of December, our debt was at $24,398. Today, it is at $19,250. That’s a decrease of $5,148. We are well shy of paying of $12,000. BUT, we took a break to beef up a savings account.
Savings Goal – Since I only have about $121 in a savings account, it might be nice to put a few more dollars in that account. If I can double the balance in 2007 I’d be happy. It’s a start.
We did more than double that $121 in our savings account! The balance in there today is $2,046 and there will be more contributed to it by the end of the year. It’s interesting how my priorities have evolved.
Retirement Goal – I will have the ability to contribute to a 401K plan this year. I am excited and I really have no idea what to expect with this. I’m waiting to get paperwork so I can read up on it. I’m on the fence right now with how much to contribute because of our debt.
I am contributing to retirement now and it feels good to have some money for the future. While it’s not as much as I’d like at the moment, I am hoping to be able to increase the withholding come the new year.
Extra Money Goal – I haven’t forgotten about eBay. I still want to sell a lot of our stuff on there to make some cash to go towards our debt reduction. I also want to reduce clutter in our house.
Well, I haven’t sold anything on eBay yet. However, we had three garage sales this summer and made a huge dent in our clutter. We also made a nice amount of money (about $600 total). I’m hoping to test the eBay waters during the Thanksgiving holiday.
Personal Goal – I’m not going to set a specific poundage to this one, but I would like to lose some weight this year. I just want to have more energy and be able to do more things. I’m hoping my Elliptial will help.
I was keeping track of this at Blogging Away Fat. To my delight, I have shed 25 pounds thus far. No, I’m not losing the weight at Biggest Loser speed, but it’s still coming off. That makes me happy. Unfortunately, I’ve had to go on a hiatus from Blogging Away Fat for a while. That’s probably for the best because I’m also trying to quit the smoking habit. Doing both would be very difficult, so while I’m trying to quit smoking I will be hiding the scale for a while.
Final Thoughts
All in all, we’ve met a lot of the goals that we have set for 2007. The biggest one that isn’t close to being met is our debt payoff goal. I thought I would really be bummed about it, but I’m not. I know that our priorities changed during the year with creating an emergency fund. I feel much better now that we have one.
Even though we are far from meeting our goal, it doesn’t mean that I won’t give it our best shot. That’s the thing about goals. Sometimes you don’t meet them but you can still work hard to do your best and see how close you can get.