Goal Update

We are starting to come out of the fog of almost 2 weeks of sickness, and boy am I glad!  I've managed to accomplish some of the goals I set out, and am trying to get back on track to finish up what still needs to be done and plan for the next week.

So how did my no-spend week go?  Well it ended up being not quite a no-spend week.  I caved and bought some clothes for Brighton on e-bay.  I did feel some guilt about the purchase, but honestly it was a decent deal at $75 shipped for a Hanna Andersson quilted baby jacket, dress with diaper cover, shirt, pants, hat, and hair bows.  Actually it included another jacket as well, but the seller relisted it and will give me some money back on the sale.  Not bad - now other than shoes and a couple of summer hats I can definitely say Brighton is set for clothing for the spring and summer.  Other than that slip up, the rest of the week went okay.  I washed both of our vehicles ($12), and did take the kids to McDonald's ($10).  But overall it was pretty good considering all of my spending was another $100.

Sell $50 worth of "stuff".  As of today, I'm up to $75 for the month of February.  I want to keep a running tally and see how much we can raise!  Last month we sold approximately $225 worth of stuff.  I'm loving it!  I also have a van full of donations to drop off.

Declutter living room, bedroom, and baking shelf in garage. Not done yet.  I have a few more things to clear out of the living room, the bedroom I only accomplished my side table (which is now nearly completely empty), and I will finish the baking shelf today and post a picture.

I'm going to hold off of posting any more specific goals for the rest of this week, and give myself some breathing room to clear out some of the things I need to sell and finish up the decluttering projects I've already started.

UPDATE:
I did it!  I finished the baking shelf today, and I managed to purge more than I anticipated.

Here's the before:

And the after... much better!

I purged a huge bag of plastic cups we bought for my son's first birthday party (he turns 6 in June!), a cast iron frying pan, an extra loaf pan, extra muffin pan, plastic party trays, chocolate fondue pot, metal pie dish, glass punch bowl, and a few other little odds and ends.  I'm feeling quite accomplished now!

I still need to tackle this mess though:

Goals and Spending Plan

Sunday seems like a good day to sit down with a cup of tea and contemplate the week.  I tend to overwhelm myself with long term goals and planning, I think I need to slow myself down and plan things one step (or week) at a time.

Nick is far away in jolly ol' England this week.  Sadly his 99 year old grandfather Jack passed away, just 6 months shy of his 100th birthday.  My mother in law generously offered to pay for Nick's plane ticket, so he seized the opportunity to spend some time with family.

While he is away I am going to try to have a no-spend week!  I have a tendency when it's just me and the kids to spend money just for something to do.  I'll grab a coffee, order pizza, swing by McDonald's, stop by the dollar store to pick up some craft supplies... I am pretty good at wasting money just for the sake of wasting it.  So this week I am having none of it!  While my budget is $0, Nick's is $400.  Hopefully he won't spend it all, but the money is there in case it's needed.

The exception to the no-spend is renewing my vehicle registration ($84.95), and paying the cell phone bill today ($120.75).  Other than that we can make do.

Aside from not spending money this week, I want to bring in at least $50 selling things around the house.  I've already decluttered and sold quite a bit, so I'm digging deep on this one, but I'm sure it can be done.

And as for decluttering, I want to work on the living room, bedroom, and baking shelf in the garage.  In preparation for our upcoming move I'm trying to be ruthless about what we truly need and use, and what we just keep for the sake of having it around.

Goal Update and Planning Session

So let's just say that we're off to a poor start with the goals.  Here's where we're at:

Commit to all cash for discretionary categories
Not so good... started off well, but then when I realized that I had planned a bit too lightly for the grocery category I kind of gave up and it all blew up in smoke.  I've had a look at our budget and come up with more realistic numbers for next go around.  And I am going to leave my debit card AT HOME, so I don't have it for back up.

Commit to earning $1200 per pay cheque
Nailed this one.  My pay cheque should actually be more like $1320.  I'm going to work towards earning $1500 per cheque - this will mean working approximately 5-6 hours, 6 days per week, but if we want to get this debt paid off AND have a realistic budget, I've got to make more money.

Do not use credit cards!
Failed at this one since I blew the budget and we had a surprise that a government benefit we were expecting was not coming at all.  Going to attack this one with a vengeance this next budget!

The longer term goals of having $10,000 paid off and $1,000 in the bank obviously aren't really measurable until closer to the end of December.  I have high hopes though!


...

I've decided apart from the longer term goals I want to come up with some smaller goals to focus on to help bring our spending more in line with what our priorities are.  So in the next little while I want to work on:

- Come up with a system to organize coupons and research some easy options for finding coupons.  This cannot take me a lot of time because I have set high targets for work that I need to achieve, and working earns more money than couponing.  If it's quick and easy then it's something I can do while the kids are awake.

- Continue to work at organizing the papers and files.  So far the system I've set up has been great!  Now I just need to get through the backlog.

- Do not buy any clothes / toys for the kids!  I'm setting this as my goal through September and I'll revisit our needs in October.

- Work at thinning out the pantry / freezer.  Plan meals around what we have on hand.  I've already started this by making a list of pantry items that I need to incorporate into recipes.

I'm going to print all of these goals out and tape them around the house so I keep myself on track!

Financial Goals

I just spent a ridiculous amount of time drawing up a rough budget up until the end of the year, and creating a spreadsheet that will track our credit balances, interest rates, and payments to keep a running total of the outstanding balance.  This is going to help SO much.  I'm a very visual person, so the easier it is for me to see at a glance where we are, the easier it is for me to stay on track.

All of that time spent was important, because I wanted to set some goals for us to finish off 2011 strong, and it's impossible to set realistic goals without some semblance of a plan in place.  I know I get discouraged and give up if I'm not even close to obtaining the goals I've set.

So here are my goals:
- Commit to all cash for discretionary categories (spending money, groceries, entertainment, clothing/gifts, and misc) - we are mostly there, but I sometimes slip up if don't get cash right after we get paid


- Keep an accurate record of all money spent - this is going to be my biggest challenge I think


- Commit to earning $1200 per pay cheque - I work from home and get paid per contract, it's sometimes hard to stay motivated to keep going, but I'm going to do it!


- Pay down $10,000 of debt by January 1, 2011 - not including our mortgage


- Have a $1,000 balance in our bank account by January 1, 2011 - it's currently at the bottom of our $2,500 overdraft


- Do NOT use credit cards! - the exception to this is we use one of our Mastercards for gas, I pay $400 towards it bi-weekly, our gas expense is always under $350.

I think we can definitely obtain all of our goals!  We're motivated and we're committed, we just have to stay focused!  I'll try to check in on these regularly to let you all know how we're doing.