My Goals Need your Help

Sorry all you readers, but I am going to ramble about my money situation again. The main goal right now is to pay off our Student Loan debt. My wife just recently got a teaching contract for the year, so we are excited about the consistent income that will come in throughout the year. We believe that we can make good progress on paying off our student loan, but we have to stay focused. Once we start making more money it is easy to relax and think we have arrived, but we have a long way to go. The last three months we have only been able to throw $200 at our loan, and it makes you feel like you are not moving anywhere. Do any of you ever feel like your in a financial ditch? I am in it right now.

The goal during this next month is to put a plan in place that will lay the ground work for paying off our student loan. We have to try to plan for most expenses coming up this year. The fall brings about more expenses with Christmas on the way. Traveling to see family is going to cost us $1000, and that does not even include the gifts. Those of you who have saved all year for your Christmas fund, hats off to you.

Here are my goals for this 2010- 2011 year. Save $5,000 for our emergency fund. Pay off $10,000 in student loan debt. These goals may sound simple for many of you out there, but this would be a huge accomplishment for us. I will use this blog to monitor our progress and if all you could please keep me accountable to them.

What savings plans do you have in place for this year? I know 2010 is almost over, but what do you hope to achieve financially, or in your personal life?

Thanks for stopping by

-Matt

Delayed Gratification

I have to announce that I have been so proud of my wife lately! We recently moved into a new condo, (new for us, not a newly built condo) to check it out click here, and my wife has happily been decorating it fairly inexpensively. All our furniture was found on craigslist for a fraction of the original price. Her new hobby is searching for deals on craigslist. The reason I am proud is because we currently have a older TV on our entertainment piece (I think that is what she calls it), and it is more than obvious that the TV is too small for the piece of furniture.


This piece of furniture was built to perfectly hold a 46" Samsung LED TV, but currently we have settled for a 22" memorex wanna be flat screen. We could have easily gone out and bought a brand new flat screen TV with one of our credit cards, or signed up for a 0% interest for 12 months deal, but we decided to wait and pay cash. My wife and I both know that once we get a flat screen, we will eventually want cable, then HDTV, then a Blue Ray player, and on and on. We want to be able to afford these small luxuries without getting in over our heads. Some of you might be thinking, why do you even need a flat screen? We don't need one truthfully, but it is something that we want to save up for. Just like many of you who went out and bought a new macbook pro. It is a luxury, but not a necessity. My wife loves decorating and making our place feel like home and this TV has been ruining the entire feng shui of our condo. I am proud of her for being patient with me as we save up for it. Our place does not look perfect in her eyes yet, but one day soon. A little delayed gratification will make it so much better to walk out of the store with a paid for flat screen TV.

What are the small luxuries in your life that you had to save up for? Was the delayed gratification worth it?

Thanks for stopping by, I would love to hear your comments.

-Matt

I have no Motivation!

My motivation for working and saving money has been lacking a lot lately. I need to set myself goals in order to stay motivated. Does that mean I have no self ambition or drive? Or am I just normal? Do I want to be normal? Sports used to force me to work out, because coaches would push you hard in practice. Now I have no one to push me, but my only motivation now is fear of looking like this guy.



In order for me to get to the gym and start saving money it takes a conscious effort in order to make any progress. It seems to come so natural for so many other people, but maybe that is just me complaining about my financial situation, and pretending that everyone has it easier. I have recently set a few new goals for myself. I just started working out again, for now I have chosen two nights a week to go to the gym after work. We have a gym at work, so it just makes sense to stay later while the traffic clears. So far so good, hopefully I can make it a habit. I have set certain weights that I want to be able to lift, and a particular distance that I want to be able to run.

As far as saving money goes, my 403(b) helps, but I need to save more cash. My goal for the end of 2010 is to have $5,000 in savings. I need to either setup an auto savings plan, or become more consistent with transferring money to savings. Currently my wife and I are throwing money towards debt, and bills but not enough towards the savings fund. This month we have to buy 4 new sets of tires, which will cost us $1300, and is a total progress downer. Then Christmas is coming up, so I guess there will never be the perfect month to save, but I just need to make it more of a priority. So I ask you experienced savers out there, what tricks or methods do you use to help make saving money a priority? How do you stay on the incline and not flat or declining? Do you have auto-savings plans? Do you pay yourself first?

Thanks for stopping by and I look forward to your feedback.

(picture from scrapetv.com)

I LOVE MY 403(b)!

In the last month my Roth 403 (b) benefits kicked in for work. I contribute 6% of my paycheck and my work will match it with 7%. I must say that I am loving this new savings vehicle. I love that it never hits my checking account. At times when I take money from my checking account and move it into Savings, it feels like I am taking money away and taking all the fun out of life. Sometimes my wife will see that we had a large deposit in our account and she will take a fresh breath of air, and then find out I took a bunch and moved it into savings, and I become the kid that you don't bring along to parties.

I love my 403(b), because it is consistently growing. I check the account every few weeks or so and I can see that it has moved up a few hundred dollars more. It is encouraging because I know my Net worth will be growing little by little. My savings can go up and down at times, because of unforeseen circumstances, car breaks down, or currently we need new tires for both cars. The 403(b) will not be impacted by my daily life, it will continue going about its own business.

Sure I will not see this money for a long time, but that is the great thing. If I could access this money now, I would figure out some excuse to use it on something I really "NEED". I can think of plenty of ways to spend a couple hundred bucks every couple weeks. So for those of you out there with 401(k)'s, 403 (b)'s, or automatic savings plans, have you told them you love them lately? But seriously do find that when money never touches your checking account it is easier to save money?

Leadership

Hey everyone! Just a quick article on leadership check it out http://bit.ly/aqPuPt. Hope you are all doing well.

I Confess!

"But you must stop looking at the world through your head. You must look through your heart, instead. That way, you will know God."- Elizabeth Gilbert


I confess I am currently reading Eat, Pray, Love. Go ahead and laugh, but since I started the book, it has been inspiring. It is an honest book about the difficulties we all face in life. At one point in time we all have questioned the American life. It is easy to become unsatisfied with the American life, that we almost feel forced into. We go off to college, get married, start a career, buy a house, have kids, raise your children until they move out, retire, travel, move to an old people community, and then die. The American life is laid out perfectly for us in this nice neat little box.

Eat, Pray, Love is about an individual who became unsatisfied with the mundane planned out life, and she wanted out. She wanted to travel and experience more than the American dream. She wanted to experience cultures, foods, and spirituality beyond what her current life could offer. This is one of those books that makes you dream, and seek new life changing experiences.

I love being married, and I love the life I have lived so far, but I want to always remember that I do not have to live like the average American. I do not need to settle on a career and work there for 30 years and then retire. I do not need to have kids 1-3 years into marriage. There should be no pressure to do these things, or expectations to live up to them. The quote above reminds me to use my heart to view life. See life as an opportunity to love and enjoy the world. If I allow myself to enjoy the different cultures, places, and people around the world I know I will see God in new ways that I have never experienced before. God is not an American. God is all over this earth, and in the small cracks and remote places of this earth, and Eat, Pray, Love is a fresh reminder of that.

So for those of you who have read the book, what are your takeaways from the book? For those of you who have not read the book, first I encourage you to read it, and second, what are your thoughts on the quote above? What are your reactions to this post?

- Matt

Days off

On days off all I want to do is enjoy the simple things in life. Work days are filled with rushing around... Driving in traffic.. And very few hours to relax. On days off I try to read, walk, ride bikes, and take each day as slowly as possible. Just finished cannery row by John Steinbeck and I thoroughly enjoyed it. One of those books that makes you get caught up in the small joys in life like great food, friendship, fires by the river, beer, and great adventures. I highly recommend it. I hope to fill my days off with more good reads, so any suggestions out there for good books, good albums, good foods?