About Me

ceejay74

I'm the CFO of a three-adult, two-child, two-cat household. There's me (CJ, age 44), my husband (NT, age 44), my wife (AS, age 39), and our kids AA (age 7) and SL (age 5). Oh, and the cats are named Whiskey and Clue.

Until July 2007 we hadn't been serious about financial stability, but then we started focusing on paying down our massive debt, building an emergency fund and saving for retirement. In October 2010, we finished paying off all of our credit card debt--over $70,000! Adding in student loans and mortgages, we've paid off more than $250,000 of debt so far. In June 2015, we used a windfall to pay off all our remaining non-home-related debt!

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2018 Goals:

Creative - get a novel publishing-ready. Step 1 (Jan): online class--done
Step 2 (Feb) create a plan for rest of year--done

Creative - learn guitar. Step 1 (Feb): private lessons @TwinTown (borrow guitar)--done
Step 2: buy guitar and continue weekly lessons/daily practice

Health - limit drinking on everyday nights.
Jan: 1 day a week of 0 glasses. DONE!
Feb: 2 days a week-- Done!

Health - limit screen time outside of work.
Jan: 1 night a week of no computer/phone use after work.
Feb: 2 days a week--done

Health - Try relaxation/destress tactics on nondrinking/no-screen-time days--tea? Meditation? Reading?
Jan: Used tea and reading.
Feb: Also used guitar practice

Pragmatic - emergency preparedness. Research on cdc.gov, ready.gov & dps.mn.gov. Make a kit, make a plan, get informed. First aid training, e.g. CPR.
Jan: researched kits, plans and classes; bought some preparedness supplies for kit; cleaned out basement to make room for eventual emergency kit.
Feb: no progress

Work/professional development: Look for class on Agile; see if work will pay for it.
Jan: No progress
Feb: No progress

Work/professional development: Start to limit social/personal internet at work.
Jan: No personal internet/phone at work one day per week. DONE!
Feb: 2 days per week--done

Financial: Retirement assets to $475K (Starting point: $390,774). Net worth to $650K (Starting point: $581,608). Bump NT's 401(k) up 2%.
Jan: Retirement at $404,682; net worth at $596,482, bumped NT's 401(k) up 1%.

Financial: Kids' savings up to at least $1K per year of age. (SL: $6,000. AA: $8,000.)
Jan: Balances SL $3,081.60, AA $5,921.32

Home: Full kitchen renovation. See what other improvements we can save up for after that.
Jan: Savings at $21,075

Vacations: UK family trip after Xmas. Solo trips for adults. Weekend at lake. CJ family reunion in June/July Niece's wedding in Va. in August.
Jan: some planning, nothing booked
Feb: time off booked for June/July and August trips

Big picture goals:

$512,564 in retirement assets by March 2019
Balance as of 1/31/2018: $404,682
Ultimate goal: 8x annual income by retirement

Explore selling UK flat and buying a rental property in Minneapolis

Completely debt-free by age 65 (2039)

My Pages

A little bit to the EF

November 3rd, 2009 at 11:59 am

I completely forgot I did this, but when I went online to check the UK mortgage balances yesterday, I noticed we did clear 25 pounds of profit from renting the UK flat this month, despite having to pay management fees. So I transferred it into UK savings and it gets counted toward the baby/emergency fund. (We would dip into the UK money as a last resort because of the currency-conversion and account-transfer fees, but it's there if we need it.)

So that counts as $50 in savings for the baby/EF. $170 saved in November so far.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comments »

1 Responses to “A little bit to the EF”

Jerry Says:
November 6th, 2009 at 12:23 pm

Windfall! Excellent... anything extra that leads to money in the baby fund is a good thing. We are in the same boat - saving for baby - and it definitely gets my attention as the time gets closer and closer. We need to save for the birth (no insurance over here, although health care costs are very low), and for the stuff thereafter. It adds up! Good luck to you...
Jerry

Ceejay74's Personal Finance Blog

A blog to help me document my journey out of debt.

A little bit to the EF

1 Responses to “A little bit to the EF”

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