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

March 2017 debt payments; savings boost

March 1st, 2017 at 10:52 pm

All of our mortgage payments hit:

US: $690 to principal
UK1: $184
UK2: $39
UK3: $41

So that's $954 paid toward debt this month. That takes our total debt to $457,599.

While I was checking the UK payments I remembered I never transferred the net rental income into savings earlier in the month. So I did, and now our EF is up to $4218 -- almost halfway to our $10K goal!

Hmm, it's getting late. I should try and get sleepy so I'm not too tired on my birthday day off!

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

4 Responses to “March 2017 debt payments; savings boost”

snafu Says:
March 2nd, 2017 at 05:12 am

Happy Birthday! Have a wonderful day, a terrific year with all your wishes coming true!
CB in the City Says:
March 2nd, 2017 at 05:25 am

Happy Birthday!
Laura S. Says:
March 2nd, 2017 at 05:28 am

Happy Birthday! Enjoy your day off
rob62521 Says:
March 2nd, 2017 at 12:35 pm

Happy birthday! Hope you had a great day off!

Ceejay74's Personal Finance Blog

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

March 2017 debt payments; savings boost

4 Responses to “March 2017 debt payments; savings boost”

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