14 for 2014 (Annual Goals)

I know we are a bit into January already...  and I've yet to do a "goals post..." but I've really had a hard time trying to get into it.

I just feel really blessed when we look at our finances right now. South County Boy and I are starting our first year of marriage where we both have full time jobs. We aren't worried about making ends meet with a solid emergency fund of 6 months of expenses under our belt and with no debt (well minus the now 20 year mortgage on the condo) we feel really free. We even upgraded/replaced a car last year!

I keep remembering back to the things I used to try and struggle to accomplish, like maxing out my Roth IRA every year or sending more money to the mortgage.... and now it's just built into our budget... all I have to do is send the money over there once it comes in each month and its taken care of... For a personal finance nerd, it may sound boring, but it's kind of cool to me. All we have to do is stick to our plan.

Since "Building Wealth" isn't about being handed a wad of cash but rather doing small things regularly, our list may seem "Same old same old" to you but that's our plan for the year. Keep it simple and have a back up plan.

Our 14 for 2014

1. Max out a Roth IRA for SCB for 2013. Since we have a few months left to go until the deadline, it doesn't make since to start a 2014 Roth IRA for either of us until we work on a Roth IRA for 2013 for South County Boy since you can't go back in time to deposit the money later on if you end up having it. But, we aren't going to pull money out of our emergency fund to make it happen... so, to help this along, the money we normally would send to my Roth IRA each month is going to go to his 2013 until we either hit the deadline, or drop $5,500.00 into it. Lets cross our fingers guys!
2. Respect the Dirty Dozen list and buy ORGANIC... We finally have an income where we don't have to eat crap anymore. While I don't want to spend a ton of money on groceries, i've read enough and seen enough online to realize that there are more pesticides and crud in our food now then ever before... So our goal is to purchase organic foods on the dirty dozen list and others when they fit into our budget of $300 a month for groceries/household stuff. I REALLY want to get healthy this year because we think we might try and have a goober next year and I want to get myself ready to be a healthy home for a future little one this year.
3. Keep our emergency fund in tact and round it up to $12,500.00
4. Participate in the Dumbo Dash WITH SCB. (A 10k followed by a half marathon the next day).Which was his idea since we both would like to loose 25 lbs a piece (I lost 15 last year and then gained it all back....) so this time were going to try together and make good changes TOGETHER so we stick with it.
5. Max out my Roth IRA for 2014. 
6. Max out a Roth IRA for SCB for 2014.. (may dip into 2015 to finish it)
7. Try to live off just my income and save/invest SCB's. We may use a little hear and there for a few things like the Dumbo Dash and for a wedding i'm going to be in... but for the most part we want to save it and pretend its just not there for regular things.
8. Visit family in Navoo Illinois for our 3 year anniversary! We'll be couch surfing with his folks while they are on their mission, but Illinois here we come!
9. Save $1,000 towards a new car since our cars are now the same age, we really need to get on a future replacement fund.
10. Continue to slowly remodel our bedroom and closet. (Eventually we want to get rid of my current furniture and buy more space appropriate stuff from Ikea since we hope to be able to completely empty our walk in closet to convert it to a future baby alcove in a year and a half when we start attempting to have a goober. (which means ripping everything out of the closet, putting in a ceiling fan for good circulation, and removing the door permanently... after of course getting all our stuff out of there! We will use SCB's income for this hopefully after the Roth IRA is done and mine gets caught back up.)
11. Try 3 new vegetables and incorporate them into our diet. We already tried Jicama and its pretty tasty! 
12. Toss a little more money to the mortgage...
13. Be an awesome bridesmaid to my friend Amy!
14. Go to the temple every other month and try and be better about doing "mormon" things like Family Home Evening, reading the scriptures together, and dong family history stuff.

You may be wondering about the "baby alcove"... and why we are thinking about putting our future some day to be conceived goober in the closet like Harry Potter...  and it all comes down to the fact that when house prices increased, we got priced out of the 2 bedroom market.

We want to afford all our obligations on one income to allow for more flexibility when we start a family and we can't afford to go from a $120,000 mortgage and property tax level to a $300,000 mortgage and property tax level. Even if we sold our place for $200,000 we would only realistically be walking away with 75k after closing costs, etc... which would give us a 20% down payment and closing cost money on a new place, but we'd have a $240,000 mortgage... which is DOUBLE our current mortgage and triple the property tax rates we currently pay... and even then were only getting a 2 bedroom townhouse... and we would have to deal with a higher interest rate...

So we have come to terms with the fact that we are staying put a little longer than we planned.