First off THANK you to those of you who braved my shared blog post topic. I didn't expect when I came up with the idea to do this that my first topic would be so BIG, but it's what was going on with me, and I appreciated the candor and bravery of everyone who shared. I've been avidly reading them all and feel really impressed with everyone's honesty as well as inspired by, moved by and totally in sync with various things that people shared. And I loved that there was as much celebration of what you wouldn't change as there was honesty about what you would. This is definitely something I'll try to do each month this year.
AS's last student loan payment squeaked in before the end of the month: $58 went to principal. That brings us up to $5901 of debt paid!!! I predict you will not soon see this level in my blog for the rest of the year.
Also, today I read a book! One of my goals that I thought I was going to fall short on this month. I chose one that looked do-able in a couple days, and it only took me a few hours. It was The Colorado Kid by Stephen King. I used to be a HUGE King fan, but in recent years I stopped reading because he just got so self-indulgent and his over-the-top writing style was making it hard to get into his newer books. This one was a bit more restrained, probably because it was written for a pulp-mystery series so he had to be brief. What's funny is that it wasn't pulpy at all; it was kind of folksy despite it being about a mysterious dead man. And it didn't have any supernatural elements, which honestly was kind of refreshing. I really enjoyed it and was glad to see he still has some thought-provoking, more disciplined writing in him.
I made good progress on my year's goals this month, so let me sum up (some will be repetitive from other entries):
-Paid off one of AS's student loans
-Saved $300 to Roth IRAs
-Increased EF by $1319.49
-Gave $35 to charities
-Got AS to within $6410 of having positive net worth
-Paid off $5901 of debt
-Lost about 2.5 lbs., getting to 153 lbs.
-Did some planning for trips we'll be taking
-Applied for 3 jobs
-Sent our estate-planning goals to our lawyer
-Read a book
-Organized a baby playdate
-Wrote a "share your thoughts" blog post
The only thing I didn't make progress on was making extra money with side hustles. (Which is an annual goal; I don't necessarily need to do it every month.) So I feel really good! Since I've completely failed to exercise this month, it feels like I'm falling down on everything, but I'm really not doing that badly. Especially since the extra monkeywrenches of finding a new parking-spot renter and a new daycare provider took time and attention away from my goals.
Now for February's debt goal:
Since I paid off that student loan, our MINIMUM principal payments come to less than $1000 ($957 to be exact). That would bug me, to pay off less than $1000, so I'm going to make sure I find money in the budget (by extra income or by skimping on another line item) to pay off at least $1000.
One more debt repayment; Jan. goals wrap-up; Feb. goals
January 31st, 2011 at 05:51 am
January 31st, 2011 at 02:32 pm 1296484328
January 31st, 2011 at 02:35 pm 1296484532
January 31st, 2011 at 03:48 pm 1296488898
January 31st, 2011 at 10:28 pm 1296512910