March Financial Review

2009 Personal Finance Goals
This first part I got the idea from Green Panda Treehouse check them out!

Debt:

• Pay off one of adams loans Adam now has a good job and is contributing most of his paycheck to his loans! Way to go Adam :) His goal is to get it to $6000 by the time we leave Seattle
  
  
• Biweekly Payments plus Principal on house called citimortgage, this is all up to date and has started!
  
  
• Emergency Fund $5000 (new goal 3/09)
  

Spending:

• Eat out no more than once a week--we went over our restaurant "budget" this time. We used coupons but went all out for valentines day. It was awesome seafood though! No regrets :)
  


• Use coupons as much as possible--we had some good grocery shopping trips this month. One week we didnt go because there were no good deals. Used alot of coupons! I am also getting $28 in rebates from walgreens and $6 from rite aid this month!
  


• Watch our spending when we come home for good--well we found out that the tenents have left our house a disaster...so we maybe spending more than expected for improvements when we get home---spent $320 this week getting the carpets cleaned
  


• Buy a washer and dryer for house on sale with coupons! new goal 2/09 going to start saving in the housefund for this...have not started researching yet because things will change
  


• Furnish house with garage sale/thrift store items until we redo the room with no more than $1000 new goal 2/09 we came to the conclusion that we will be buying a bed when we get home so we will start looking!
  
  
• Sending our taxes away to get done by professionals ($250) but I couldnt do them on my own this year, too complicated! Lets hope we dont owe anything! new goal 3/09
  
  
• Applying for the New Home Buyer Credit $7500 to repay in the next 2 years new goal 3/09
  

Frugal:

• Try to get enough CFL lightbulbs to replace all of the lights when we move in..using coupons of course --got 7 so far, rite aid was doing a refund on some, picked up 2 for $.50 each!
  


• Keep entering giveaways for gift cards to home depot for our house won a blackjack phone! That was exciting! But now it might increase our phone bill, I wanted email at some point though! Also won an ipod shuffle (using for a gift!) no home depot cards though...
  


• Savings: Save up 6 months of emergency savings currently at: $2647.20!
  


• Save up a downpayment on a car brand new Hundia accent or Nissina versa(about $10,000) currently at: $2202.75
  


• Save some of every paycheck for Roth so I can max out next year($5000) new goal added 2/09 currently have contributed $4,039.00

So Here we are in March. February flew by, probably cause its a short month? We went over budget on eating out this month. Not really sure why but we did. Oh well we told ourselves no eating out until St Patricks Day. Its just so hard to not eat out when you dont have an oven and there are a million restaurants out our window. Adam is liking his job here its nice that we get to stay. On friday it was supposed to be our last day here, now 3 more months! Its weird not leaving. Work has been a bummer lately. Our census is so low they cancelled me 20 hours out of 36 one week. That paycheck sucked, so didnt save as much as I wanted this month. Lets hope it gets better this month. I am starting to get some things together to apply with new travel companies in hopes of getting a job in June!

My Short Term Financial Goals by May
Heres what we got:
Last month= blue
This month= red

Our HouseFund: We added $4000 in there because our mortgage gets directly withdrawn and we get more interest with more money so I took from my checking $2970.50--$6642.39(We had more than usual come out this month because we signed up for biweekly payments and there was a $300 charge :()
My Checkings (high interest): $9493--$3907.50
My Checkings (no interest): $2252--$993.06--I get paid tomorrow...
CD at huntington (expiring in march) will deposit into checking or house--or car!:$5,909--$5,935(I have decided to deposit this into my car savings so I wont have a car payment when we get home it expires on the 19th)
Adam Checkings (high interest): $745.00--$49.91 (he moved money to his other checking for extra loan payment)
Bank of America: $79--$79 --I have to close this account when I get the time...
Roth: $8071--$9230.30
Credit Card debt: $158--we havent paid rent yet...
401k: $1518--$1325.90 :(
**NEW 401k--$1,294.78--$1,838.61

Ok so heres the goals until May 19(the end of this assignment):

• Start contributing to my Roth this year and max out by April:$472 for December $674 January for 2008 contribution so I can max out(hopefully!) currently contributed: 2,737.00 for year 2008
  


• Make 2 payments to Adams loans (on top of what he pays) : Currently -$7996.96 from Direct Loan Service and -$40817.35 from First Resource Federal will plan this paycheck to contribute something to it!
  


• Try to get someone to rent out our house while we are away for extra money for our mortgage. I think I am going to cancel this goal if theres nothing promising by next month...
  


• Split paychecks every 2 weeks into Mortgage payment, Roth IRA, Checking Account, and Emergency Fund


• Get $1750 for our apt in Seattle and bank at least $100 each month--Used any extra for the Roth
  


• Continue to pay off credit card each month doing well with this


• My meal plans have worked out pretty well. We go shopping once a week and have not spent over $100.
  Feb 17- $55
  March 1- $41
  I made some good pasta the other night but since we live in a tiny studio, I blew a fuse 3 times because I plugged in the hot plate and the crockpot oops.
  


• Continue to get the deals at walgreens for a garage sale this summer with my sister!---still doing that! We got cheap deodorant, candy, free makeup etc!
  


• I am still going to use as many coupons as possible. Joined new trains and got lots, now we just need cheaper grocery stores.


• I am also going to try to get $50 or more in Chacha extra money (now $$131.43 went up $16 this month! wow...)
  
  
• I signed up at Pinecone Research and got a $12 so far this month! I like this company! It takes no more than 15 min to complete a survey and you get paid quick! I also got some samples in the mail
  

So theres the update! Any thoughts are helpful. I think this month was a good one, mostly because of this job. Lets hope next month is a good one too!!

Completed Goals

• Pay off scooter by February balance=done January 10
• Pay off Jeep done! 2/1/09
• $1000 in Emergency Fund done January 16