2010 Annual Goals: March Wrap Up

Financial $$$ & Personal Goals End of March Re-cap

Pay off non-mortgage Debt
• Pay off Tile Loan -> $4,000.00 FTH Tax Return
• Pay off Home Depot -> $4,000.00 FTH Tax Return
Mailed & waiting

Lower Mortgage to under $115,000.00 • @ $117,023.74 (2,023.74 to go)
Principle Payments:
January $137.07 +$60.00 | February $137.96 + $60.00 |March $138.82 +$60.00

Get emergency fund to $8,200.00 (left to add $900.00)
Emergency fund now sits at $7,300.00
January $100 |February $100| March $100

Contribute $5,000.00 to Roth IRA ($4,250.00 left to add)
January $250.00 | February $250.00 |March $250.00

Car Fund (Save $250.00) (left to add $97.24)
This month I added $47.20 since I only filled up the car twice. The savings account now has a balance of: $492.76

Increase Networth to $60,000.00
• @$52,084.00 (change of $1,172.00 or 2.30% from last month)This Month:
• I put $250 to the Roth IRA
• My employer 401a contributions: $28.48
• My Pension got a push: $123.08
• Paid down the mortgage this month by $198.82
• Saved some money into the car fund this month: $47.20
• One paycheck had some overtime hours (3.75 hours) on it from teaching CPR and attending a committee meeting. $64.82 Put into savings immediately
• After all my endless shopping… I had $13.00 left over that I added to my “Extra Money Savings account”… but boy did I spend this month.

Personal Goals:

GET IN SHAPEI succeeded again in not eating any red meat this month… It’s almost normal that it feels weird to write it out here each month. But I’ve been toying with the idea of giving up ground turkey… I notice on days where I eat it I don’t feel so hot afterwards because I don’t eat it in small quantities… When I cook with it, it becomes the main thing, so maybe I just need to reduce the quantity of it… Either way, I don’t think I’ll “buy” it in the store. If I’m some place, and turkey is an option, I’ll go with it… but I don’t think I’ll purchase it… that way it will limit the frequency that I have it... I still have some in my freezer (frozen meatballs, one package of ground turkey, and 2 packages of turkey kielbasa…) But for next month I think I might try more vegetarian options… I’m really really digging soups/stews lately (cold weather food).

I’ve lost a total of 6-7 lbs since January... Now my blue plaid shorts fit again but I think my Tan shorts are too big now and fit funny… I think they will get the ax… but I think I need tobuy more shorts… but I hate buying shorts/capris/bottoms… they never fit right… ever.

I completed a marathon in: 7 hours 40 mins!!!

Give More
• Kiva- I made one Kiva loan in January (Mongolia), one in February (Sierra Leon) and one in March (Mali)… set aside money for a loan for April.
• Childshare – By participating in the Marathon I raised over $1,000.00 personally, ($2,540 as a team) to find kids good loving homes! Next year my co-worker is going to do it again with me… so that’s one more person fighting for the cause. I’m pretty sure 2 out of the 4 of us who did the marathon will be doing the 5k next year… and I think a few others might do the 5 k from our church too, so we may be creating 2 solid teams. 5k & Marathon.

Track my spending
Kept track but did not stuck to the budget for the most part. I ran out of a few things this month and spent a little more than normal on Household supplies… but when you need TP… what can you do =) spent more on groceries… and when I found extra money I fully spent it instead of saving it (Bad me bad!—like cancelled piano lessons… )

I desperately needed more cooking/ kitchen supplies like baking sheets and some cookware since I wanted to do some baking this month for a saint patties day pot luck… and while I was at Walmart picking that stuff up I found a bathing suit ($15 bucks and it looks fabulous on my marathon training self… and my old one really needed to be retired) and some needed undergarments so I picked those up as well ($I had 10 bucks in cash leftover from last month in my wallet so I used that, plus the $20 from the missed piano lesson, so it was only $30 out of this month’s “random” expense budget… since I don’t budget for clothes and birthdays and what not, I have that $80.00 sitting around as a buffer.

I also went on a mini shopping excursion… with some of that money I found in BOFA… and I donated $60.00 of the found money to Child S.h.a.r.e. since I can legitimately say I’ve lost and kept off 6 lbs (that was the day before the marathon)!!!

Later, I decided to shop some more…. (Let’s just say all that extra money I found has been diminished!)

Read One book a Month
I’m still reading book 3: Captivating by John and Staci Eldredge

SO FAR I GIVE IT: 10 Stars/5 Stars
My best friend told me I needed to own it. She hates chick “how to be a better______” books … or those women’s bible study books… but she said this was the one women’s book every woman should own… and it kind of fit with the personal stuff going on in my life so we went to Barnes and Noble and picked it up with her. SPOT FREAKING ON…
Amazon link:
Chick Here

With getting sick, the marathon and a bunch of other stuff I just didn’t get time to finish it and its not one of those novels you just fall into… it makes you think and thinking isn’t a bad thing at all. =) So I’ll try and finish captivating plus another book next month too. I still have a couple left from my last bookstore jaunt before I moved so I think come May I’ll have to go hunting for some new reads.