About Me

ceejay74

I'm the CFO of a three-adult, two-child, two-cat household. There's me (CJ, age 43), my husband (NT, age 44), my wife (AS, age 38), 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!

Check out my personal finance advice and discussion website at ordinarysavers.com!

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2017 Goals:

Financial:

- Attempt refi on US duplex if it appears home values are strong enough to give us 80% LTV
Progress: looked into it but doesn't look like a good option right now.

- Increase 401(k)/SEP contributions up to 10% for NT, 10.5% for me and 11% for AS.
(Right now NT is at 8% with match, I'm at 9.5% with match, and AS is at 10%)
Progress: AS now putting 11% aside, CJ 10.5%

- Get assets above a million, debt below $450K, net worth to $600K, retirement above $350K
As of 6/30/17:
Assets $974,806
Debt $454,735
Net worth $520,071
Retirement $335,025

Other goals:

- Continue home renovations:
Upstairs bathroom (complete redo)
Progress: done!
Insulation for whole house
Save up as much as we can for kitchen (complete redo)

- Re-establish nearly daily walking and no breakfast/snacks habits; get weight below 130

- Self-publish two novels (already written, need editing) and write at least one more

- Try about one new recipe per week (at least 50)
Progress: 29 down, 21 to go

- Declutter/reduce stuff, beginning with boxes of paper

- Take a more active role in garden/yard maintenance

Big picture goals:

$494,743 in retirement assets by 2019
Balance as of 6/30/2017: $335,025
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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