End of Year Update

Well, I've really been slacking at creating posts during the second half of the year. It isn't even really that I haven't had time. It just hasn't been a priority. Instead of blogging I've done things like homework, reading books, playing board and video games, and hanging out with family and pets. Now that it's winter though, things are slowing down somewhat. I have a final on Monday and then I'm done with school until January. I also get the last two weeks of December off and am looking forward to that. All that being said, I think I'm ready to start picking up my blogging again. I still won't make a lot of posts but I'm going to aim for at least one a month.

Since our last update a lot has happened with us financially. We continue to be very blessed and have been trying to make wise decisions with all God has bestowed upon us to look after. So, without further ado, let's take a look at the goals created earlier this year:

If you remember from our previous post, 2009 Financial Goals, our goals for the year are:

• Pay off our auto loan (our last consumer debt)
• Install a sliding patio door off our dinning room.
• Fix our Garage door (it's been broken since we bought the house)
• Update our Bathroom
• Update our Kitchen (This does not include new appliances.)
• Partially finish the basement
• Save 3 months worth of income in our Emergency Fund
• Completely stick to our budget at least 1 month (We always seem to go over in one or more areas but it evens out because we are then under in other areas.)
• Increase our net worth to $80K or more
• Be content with all our financial decisions throughout the year

As of our last update we had met three of these goals:

• Completely stick to our budget at least 1 month
• Increase our net worth to $80K or more
• Pay off our auto loan (our last consumer debt)

We are happy to still be consumer debt free. We have also been able to save up the money to purchase and install our sliding door. Unfortunately we haven't been able to find anyone to do the installation. With it now being the mid/end of December we have decided to put it off until it starts warming up again next year. Knowing Michigan, that means we'll probably install it next April. In the mean time we have set aside this money in a short term CD so we get a better interest rate on it. Although we have met the financial ability to check this one off the list I don't want to remove it until it is fully completed.

We also decided to add a couple things to our goals and have been able to meet some of these items. That means our goal list now looks like this:

• Install a sliding patio door off our dinning room.
• Fix our Garage door (it's been broken since we bought the house)
• Update our Bathroom
• Update our Kitchen (This does not include new appliances.)
• Partially finish the basement
• Save 3 months worth of income in our Emergency Fund
• Be content with all our financial decisions throughout the year
• Purchase and Treadmill or Elliptical
  
• Save up for a trip to Ireland
• Start meeting the minimum to get 401K donations from work
  

The goals that we have been able to meet on this list are:

• Be content with all our financial decisions throughout the year
• Purchase and Treadmill or Elliptical
  
• Save up for a trip to Ireland
• Start meeting the minimum to get 401K donations from work

One of the things we decided was to take a trip to Ireland next year. It is something we have wanted to do for years and we felt like this would be the perfect time for it. We have also been trying to increase our fitness level over the last year, to a fair amount of success, and would like to purchase some exercise equipment to help with this.

We have been able to save several thousand dollars to take our trip to Ireland and plan on purchasing the trip within the next couple months (we're making sure we can get an awesome deal.. of course!). We also have our eye on a treadmill we saw on craigslist. It's new in the box and selling for a cool $1000 less than anywhere else we've seen it advertised. It's been a couple days since we emailed the person so I'm not sure it will pan out, but we have enough set aside to purchase one full retail if needed.

In addition to this, starting next paycheck, 6% of or income will be going towards our 401K so we can get the full company match. We had suspended our 401K contributions late last year to focus on pay off debt. Now that our consumer debt is taken care of we feel comfortable bumping that up to 6%. Our other goals will be carried over to next year. I imagine we will have a few more to add as well.

Although we haven't been able to save up 3 months of expenses in our emergency fund, we do have 2 months of expenses saved up so we're making definite progress. With a couple of the fun purchases behind us we will be able to shift focus to saving up for house improvements. I imagine we'll be able to knock of most of the other goals next year, if not all! That makes me very excited.

Well I think that's all for now. Have a Merry Christmas everyone!!