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End of the Year Wrap-up and 2008 Goals

December 27th, 2007 at 07:11 pm

Well, it's almost the end of the year and it seems to be a good time to take a broad perspective look at things.

1. My b-day is tomorrow. Yes, that number on the left side of the screen will change to 37 tomorrow. I will be an old woman. ;P

2. My credit card debt has not decreased a lot, but it has gone down to $1658. I don't know what my balance was last year, though. I did get the APR on my card lowered by 3%, so this should help a lot. See my blog from yesterday about that.

3. My medical debt has gone down quite a bit to a total of $4041.18.

4. My retirement has increased to $9376.80. I am really impressed. I haven't really been checking on it or doing a lot with it and I have only been contributing since July 2006.

Cool. I am happy with what I have done with my finances this year.

My goals for the coming year include:

1. Find a way to increase the amount in my short term savings (i.e., emergency savings). I don't really like to call it emergency savings, because that puts it out there that there might be an emergency.

For some reason, I can't seem to accumulate the recommended $1000 that Dave Ramsey talks about. Something always seem to come up that snatches that money away. The most I seem to be able to get to is around $300.

2. Continue to pay off the medical debt. In July, I should get a raise, after which I will double the amount I am paying on one of the medical bills.

3. Continue paying off the credit card debt. I am making one big payment for the paycheck of the month, then a smaller one for the second. In between, I am also sending small payments when I get a survey check or something.

5 Responses to “End of the Year Wrap-up and 2008 Goals”

  1. Ima saver Says:
    1198783382

    Happy birthday, I wish I was 37 again. I felt very young when I was that age! You are not old til you act old and I refuse to act old!

  2. merch Says:
    1198789100

    Happy B-day!!!

    Reflect on where you came from and where you are. Your doing great. Just keep at it.

    As for the emergency fund, may be you need some more categories. Like auto maintenance, I put $100 in this bucket a month. When I have a maintenance issue, I don't need to tap my emergency fund cause I already budgeted for repairs. Just a thought.

  3. Dido Says:
    1198797024

    Happy birthday! (Uh-oh, if your 37 is old, what am I? I have a decade on you!)

    Congrats on getting the debt down, and good luck building up the $1000 basic emergency fund. Maybe you'll have been luck if you take it week-by-week--if you can save $20/week, you should have the other $700 by the time school begins next fall. Join the $20 challenge and make it a game to save $20/week--buy a regular coffee instead of a cappucino and put $2 towards the $20; sell some old books on ebay and put that money towards the challenge; pay yourself a dollar for each workout you do like Imasaver does--if you make it a fun challenge to save $20/week, maybe you'll have better luck. Good luck!

  4. Broken Arrow Says:
    1198822016

    Happy birthday!

    Don't worry about not catching up on the 1k. At least it means you had some money on hand when these small emergencies popped up. Imagine if you did NOT have the money on hand.

  5. crazyliblady Says:
    1201476844

    Thanks, Broken Arrow. The problem is that the reason my cc debt has not really gone down very much is because it has been yo-yo-ing all year long. An update to my goals is that since we read about the rebate in the news, I drew up kind of a loose plan of what to do with the rebate and tax refund, depending on how much there is. I want to pay off one medical bill in full (~$160) and pay a big hunk of credit card debt (~$500). My dh wants to buy a new tv, too, but I think the money would be better spent on debt. I guess we have to figure it out.

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