Baby Step #1: DONE!

As of last night my Emergency Fund is complete!! Due to some poor planning last month (i.e. forgetting to budget for gas expenses for trip home) I did not complete the emergency fund prior to the end of the month. Yesterday was pay day which allowed me to move around some money in this month's budget to complete the ER fund!!

WooHoo!!!

Which means Baby Step #2 is under way! This is where I start paying debt off! By the end of summer I hope to have the following paid off:

US Bank Credit Card: $1,194.43
Chase Credit Card: $2,440.72
Joe C. Davis Student Loan: $2,654.62

Total: $6289.77

I will start paying every extra penny towards the US Bank Credit card until it's paid off while paying the minimum payment on the others. When the first is paid off, all those funds will go towards the second one.

By the end of the year, I will have completed those three debts and then will have a made good headway in the first of my two large student loans!

Freedom, here I come.

New Year's Resolutions

This time of year it seems like everyone is making a new year's resolution or two. I've never been a big fan of the idea of resolutions. I prefer to use the term and idea of goals for the year instead. I have spent some time reflecting on this past year, and have determined some goals for the year. I'm a big fan of choosing baby goals each month to make the bigger one's happen. These are the goal's I've established for this year (outcomes, if you will!)


1. Get connected in a meaningful way to the larger Waco community.

I have several different ways I want to seek this out. I want to not only make a difference in the lives of those in my community, but allow them to make a difference in mine. I want to find a small group to plug in with at church. I also want to begin volunteering for Care Net. It's no secret that I'm passionate about pro-life issues, adoption and abortion alternatives. I think that there is so much I can learn by walking with some women who have been in these situations.

2. Work towards financial fitness.

I need to be better at budgeting (I stink). I also want to have credit card debt eliminated by summer and one of my three student loans gone by the end of the year, with a big chunk of a second one paid off. I'll go into more detail about that when I finally complete my ER fund. (Which, due to the lack of my ability to budget, will be later than originally planned.)

3. Run more- longer and frequently.

I want to run a 5k next month. A 10k at some point in the spring and then a half marathon in the fall.

4. Cherish friendship with but a chosen few and study the perfecting of those friendships.

This number is directly a line from the Alpha Gamma Delta purpose. The older I get the more that purpose resonates with my heart and soul. While I love and cherish my friends, I am not the greatest at maintaining contact with them. I want to be a better friend this year.


5. Grow deeply in faith and relationship with the Lord.

I think it speaks volumes that I thought to write this one fifth. We sang a song at church today that said that God is in our every breath. I found myself wondering if I truly let Him be IN the breath or just make it happen? I want to seek His face so that there is now doubt that I live out of an overflow of God's love in my heart.

I think those are five very loaded things. Overall, I hope that I grow deeper this year. And I hope that my life reeks of intentionally, love and grace.

I Like This Game

This week marked my first direct deposit into my savings account. Between that disbursement and depositing some of my Christmas money, I am now only $307 from my emergency fund goal!

I'll have another segmenthttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif deposited at the end of the month. I also think I can sit down and scrounge up enough extra funds from the budget to make the goal by the end of January! Hopefully in February I'll have completed one baby-step and starting the second!!

I am hoping to bring in a little additional income through selling photography. I've got a few items for sale on my Etsy shop, but have several more that I just haven't gotten around to putting up. Check out the link above and keep lookin- more stuff will be added soon!

Here's to an exciting, closer to debt-free, new year!

Change in Lifestyle

While at home over the Thanksgiving break I started reading my dad's copy of Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. I couldn't put down the book, and thought it was insightful and funny.

As a result of reading that book, I've started the Total Money Makeover. Dave (we're on a first name basis) outlines a series of baby steps, and I'm on number one! This means that I need to save $1000 in an emergency fund before I begin Baby Step 2- The Debt Snowball.

I also created a pretty decent budget and outline of where my money should go every month. I've tried to be strategic about using direct deposit to help with this. For example, I have two checking accounts and two savings accounts. One of my accounts is at a bank in KY and one is here. I've set it up so that certain things go to the KY account that is used far less often. My auto insurance, travel and gift funds all are directly deposited in that account monthly. My auto insurance is automatically paid monthly from that account. This way, I'm not keeping a wad of cash all year until I need it to travel, and when I do need it I can easily transfer it to the other bank, or just use that debit card. Plus it's far less tempting to dip into those funds, since I kinda forget that account is there. I've also set up a recurring deposit to my savings account from my paycheck. My money is managing itself!

I'm going to blog about my process through this makeover. If you are interested, you can track my progress through the interactive chart on the right!