Elevate Your Finances in 2011 - February update
Time to update my financial goals, which I posted at the beginning of the year.
My main financial goal is to pay off 50% of the balance (as of 12/31/10) of our home equity line this year. Of course, we hope to pay it all off! But we are being realistic, and making a goal that is challenging, yet achievable.
But...
This month, we had expenses due to a recent out-of-town trip, as well as car insurance and property tax expenses. (We don't escrow the property tax, so that I can use this income tax savings tip.)
Unfortunately, we were not able to make a payment toward the home equity principal, though of course we paid the interest owed. Bummer.
But, things are looking up for the next few months. With those expenses behind us, we should have some extra cashflow in the coming months to put toward this goal. Also, I received some small payments from the advertisers on Frugal Follies, so that extra income will help. (Thank you to all my readers for considering offers, printing coupons, getting freebies, and clicking on ads. I truly appreciate everything you do.)
I also set a goal to make a comprehensive list of all our financial accounts by the end of February. Alas, I did not work on this either. Gotta get this done!
So, basically, I got nothing done on my goals this month. I'm sure some of you can relate to that. But I hope to make some progress next month!
How are you doing on your financial goals this year? Leave a comment below!
I hope you found this post to be helpful! If you'd like to learn more about frugal living, couponing, freebies, and deals, please subscribe to the Frugal Follies newsletter, become a fan on Facebook, or follow on Twitter.
5 comments:
My husband and I set a goal this year to start saving for a down payment on our first home! He is in the military and we've been renting for the past few years, since you just never know how long you will be in one place.
With no debt, car payments, etc - we've started setting aside a pretty good chunk of money each month. So far, so good! I'm really hoping we'll be able to meet our goal by December. Here's to hoping!
We aren't making much progress this month either. But I am trying to focus on tightening my belt as much as possible and making more money on my blog. In other words, I am trying to focus on what I can do vs. what is out of my control.
I found out last night we will have a second wedding this summer in our family. But, since we were expecting it we had already adjusted the budget for it in case. I was curious about you saying that you are going to pay off half of your mortgage. Have you had it long, or are you scaling back a lot to pay for it, or do you live in an area where the average house isn't over 200,000 like where we live? We pay extra each month and were going to put a big chunk towards our mortgage, but we are spending that money on weddings and graduations now. Weddings are a wonderful and I am glad to be able to pay cash for them even if it means that we change our goals a bit.
@Spendwisemom - I'm not paying off half my mortgage, I want to pay off half of the money we took out in a home equity line of credit. We used that money to pay for a car, a year of private school, and some other expenses, back in 2007-2008. We have paid off some of the expenses in 2009 and 2010, and hope to have 50% of the balance paid off by the end of 2011.
As for our house, we are in year 9 of a 15 year mortgage - even if we pay nothing extra, we'll have our mortgage paid off in 2017.
Thanks for the clarification. I appreciate you sharing. I thought that paying $50,000 to $100,000 in one year was quite a large goal. I hope you are successful in reaching your goal. We are hoping to get our mortgage paid off in the next 5 years too by accelerated payments. Hope you have a great day!
Post a Comment