Goals for 2013

Instead of the normal New Year’s Resolutions this year, why not set some goals for 2013? If you are really interested in doing something different this year set goals and make a plan. Here are the 5 areas we focused on in 2012 and I feel like we have become a better version of ourselves because of it. We still have plenty to work on in 2013!!

1.       Physical Goals

2.       Relational Goals

3.       Financial Goals

4.       Spiritual Goals

5.       Professional Goals

Physical Goals

Losing weight, working out regularly, eating better, or creating more balance are great goals to start with.  Make a workout plan that improves on what you are already doing little by little. If you don’t work out at all, don’t make a commitment from January 1 to workout 6 days a week. Decide in January to workout 1 day a week for 30 minutes. February can build on that. You didn’t make bad habits in one month, you aren’t going to turn the ship around in one month either.

Relational Goals

I divided mine up into different categories. I wanted to improve with my relationship with my husband and I made some goals that I kept and a lot that I broke too. I made goals to improve my relationship with myself…weird, I know. I don’t always have the best things to say about myself and I don’t want to continue that habit. In order for some of my ME goals to happen I had to say “no” to other good things. I also wanted to set goals in my relationship with Ethan; I want to be a better mom, even in the small things. I wrote down goals to improve relationships with my best friend, small group, and the people I see at church.

Financial Goals

Well you know we were all over these! We made specific goals for 2012 and are on target to meet them despite all of the bumps in the road. I’ve learned that for as many set-backs we’ve had financially, we’ve been blessed that much and more. Our financial plan started almost 4 years ago with both of us dreaming about what we could do if we had money. Start by dreaming about where all your money would go if you didn’t pay a penny to debt. For us that was a lot of money 4 years ago. We are a little over a year from that moment…our conversations have been so fun thinking about the freedom that comes with no payments!! Until then, we forge ahead!

Here is a podcast that we have recently listened to that helped us start thinking about financial goals for 2013. Check out the website- http://howtoberich.org/

Spiritual Goals

This is a big one for us too. We desire to be a serving part of our church family. We also want to put a plan in place to grow in our personal relationship with Jesus daily. We’ve learned in all of these areas that discipline grows when we do something even when we don’t feel like it. I’ve lapsed on my discipline in this area some this year and plan on making a better plan for 2013.

Professional Goals

I spend most of my waking hours at work and want those hours to be purposeful too. I chose some areas that align with my passion and pushed myself to do a better job. I teach physical education to K-4^th graders and I get energy from seeing kids get healthier. I have a considerable population of students in the overweight and obese categories and I want to do whatever I can to help those kids learn about the habits to become healthy kids so they will be healthy adults someday too.

YTD Debt Pay-Off: $13,151.90
Total Debt Pay-Off: $37,151.90

$1,000 Pizza!!

Well...it wasn't exactly a thousand dollar pizza. If you are new to our family blog, we are high-tailing it out of debt and for every thousand dollars we've paid off this year we get a surprise. In January of 2012 we were around $35,000 in debt and I made 35 envelopes with some sort of note of encouragement or little break to keep us motivated to move forward. It has really worked for us. We've kept the course and yesterday we opened the $12,000 envelope making us even closer to our goal. Our last 2 debts are student loans so the card inside the envelope told us to go back to those college days and get a pizza. Our goal is to pay off $14,000 by January 2013. We are right on track to make that happen. Thanks for checking in with us- it's just as encouraging to see people reading my blog as it was to go eat the pizza we earned! :)

Here's our next target---



YTD Debt Pay-off: $12,000

Total Debt Pay-off: $36,000



Say Cheese!

Fall is the perfect time for this party of three to take some professional pictures together. So we budgeted the cost for a photographer and prints and so far we are under budget! (Love it when that happens!!)

We decided to get one of our pictures blown-up in black and white at the UPS store. We spent $2.50 on the engineer print and then went out in search for a frame. I had this 75% off coupon to Michaels for custom framing and knew it would be our best bet. Our 24x36 inch print wouldn't be cheap to frame, but with 75% off- it should fit right into our budget...so I thought! We were at Michaels for 45 minutes trying to find the best deal for this print. I kept reminding them that I only spent $2.50 on the print so the MOST inexpensive frame is what I want! After they cut out all the bells and whistles and took my 75% off they quoted us $140!! What?! That's when we left empty-handed and went elsewhere!

My husband had a great idea to go to an art and frame store across the street and ask for any clearance frames. He went in to ask while I stayed in the car with Ethan. In about 2 minutes he came out with a huge frame. With the look of shock/horror on my face he told me that the lady in the store gave it to him for free and it was the exact size we needed! Horror turned to joy and excitement really fast! We fixed a few scratches with a black sharpie and it is proudly mounted on our wall!

We paid off another $1,000 on October 19th making this $11,000 for 2012! We couldn't be happier! The next few months might be scary financially for most, but we have a very detailed budget for every dollar even during the holidays. We won't have to wake up on New Years Day with a financial hang-over from the holiday season. 


YTD Debt Pay-off: $11,390.72
Total Debt Pay-off: $35,390.72


Here are some of our family pictures- courtesy of Katy Gitto Photography

10,000 and 2

10,000
It's been a big last few weeks for us! We opened a $10,000 envelope which means we've paid off $10,000 of student loan debt since January 1, 2012. It was a huge milestone for us, we kept looking at our refrigerator and having to remind each other that, we've almost paid off $10,000 this year!! It was a strange but great feeling. The note inside the envelope told us to turn in the change from our change jar and cash it in for a date. Usually that's a pretty good chunk of change...except we recently used some of it to wash both dirty cars! We scraped up around $18 in change and went to see the final Bourne movie in a theater with leather recliners! It was a much needed night out together.

2
Ethan is now a 2 year old! He is also learning about money now that he's so big. Ethan has 5 chores that he can do to learn responsibility in our family and when he completes one of those chores he gets a sticker on a chart. After all 5 chores are complete he gets to put 5 pennies in his bank. We like it because it's a good way to get him to help out the first time asked and he also works on some fine motor skills by putting pennies in a slot. As he gets older these 5 chores will be ones that he will do without pay because he's a part of our family and then do some more challenging chores for a commission. Pennies work great since he has no concept of the value of money, we just want him to get excited about helping out.

YTD Debt Pay-off: $10,027.33

Total Debt Pay-off: $34,027.33

Just Say No!

Say goodbye to the $9,000 envelope. We didn't get too attached because it was only on our fridge for 10 days. HELLO $10,000 envelope! It's wild to see that huge number hanging on our fridge in a short 8 months. We are on our way to pay off $10,000 of debt this year.  Read more about our envelope system to pay off debt here.

We are going to celebrate our son's 2nd birthday at the end of the month. One of the words he loves to say (like most 2 year olds) is "NO!" He learned it from us. We know that our success is due to saying "NO" to lots of things. Saying "NO" these last 8 months was hard at times, but in all actuality, the progress we've made in such a short time made all of those NOs worth it. I don't even know what we wanted to say yes to over the last 8 months, but I'm sure if we would have said "YES" instead, we would have nothing to show for it now.

Check out my budgeting tips and make your money mind. After you decide where you want your money to go, say "NO" to everything else. You will be amazed at what you can do with a little NO therapy!

YTD Debt Pay-off: $9,000
Total Debt Pay-off: $33,000



Budgeting Tips

It's been enjoyable watching the Olympics these last few days. The teamwork, athleticism, coaching, victories, near loses, and world records make me want to soak in every second of the coverage.  I especially love the commentators and post-event interviews. *thick sarcasm* If I hear the word "catastrophic" one more time...anyway, the negative comments remind me of the disdain we have heard from people around us about our search for victory. Not everyone sees the road we are taking as a good thing. In a world where having stuff is a measure of success, we look very unsuccessful. We look stingy, poor, like tight-wads...sounds fun, huh?!

"The Lord doesn't see things they way you see them. People judge by the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." 1 Samuel 16:7

We are intently training for our debt-free victory just like the athletes did. The secret to our success is the budget. It is the workout plan, it's the measure of our discipline. We budget every dollar that comes in on paper before we spend it in real life. I know that sounds too easy to really work, but month in and month out for three and a half years we have lived on this kind of budget. The best part is that we get to decide where our money goes. It's not restricting like we first thought it would be, it's very freeing. Our money is planned out so when we spend money, it's guilt-free. Right now we chose to put all our excess money toward student loans. We could certainly take that money and go on a vacation because it is still our money, but we are sticking to the plan.

 

 "Children do what feels good, while adults devise a plan and follow it." ~Dave Ramsey




Quick Budgeting Tips



1. I use excel (paper and pencil work too) and write down our payday and income for the month.

2. We start by taking our tithe out first (10% of our income we give to our church)

3. Next we take out living expenses (rent, water, trash, gas, and electricity)

4. We now budget food/toiletries

5. Deduct money for transportation (insurance, gas, and oil changes)
6. We take out daycare expenses next
7. We pay minimum payments on all our debts (the smallest debt gets special attention at the end of this list)

*Now that we have the "necessities" taken care of we can budget for things that are nice but not mandatory
8. We pay for 2 cell phones and wireless Internet
9. We each get spending money each month for things we want. We call it BAM!
10. We also budget date night money each month
11. For miscellaneous expenses we budget a different amount each month for haircuts, gifts, or whatever we have planned for that particular month
12. Finally, we pile all the remaining money onto the smallest debt we owe. (More here about the debt snowball)


Our latest small victory is paying off another $1,000 of debt this week. We opened the $8,000 envelope and it told us to enjoy a KC sporting event. We, however, decided to go to the zoo instead! It felt like a sporting event walking to Africa and back!

Don't worry...that lion is behind glass! She looks pretty ferocious!

Rawr!!

YTD Debt Pay-off: $8,720.36

Total Debt Pay-off: $32,720.36

Summer Fun

This summer I decided to teach summer school. It's not how I want to be spending my highly anticipated time off, but it boosts our income and helps our debt-free plan. We found out that opening one envelope is fun...but opening two envelopes in 4 days is even more fun!! Speaking of fun...we do have it! We just plan for our fun in advance rather than pay for it afterwards. This makes the fun stuff guilt-free and regret-free. BONUS!!

Here's some of the fun we've been having.

The Color Run KC-
We found out about this crazy 5k run that throws a colored powder on you every kilometer. Chris and I ran with our best friends Ryland and Lauren and plan on doing this 5k next year too!

July 4th-

Chris and I were both off on the same day and this rarely happens. So we planned a fun day as a family. It was over 100 degrees outside so we had to be creative. We spent the morning at an indoor toddler playground called Little Monkey Business and Ethan played so hard! We ate lunch at one of our favs...Culvers and then went to a afternoon movie. Ethan has never been to the theater and we weren't sure how he would do. We watched Brave and he watched it for about an hour and then...not so much! After that we spent the evening with some 100+ people from church for dinner and fireworks. Great day off!

Say "french fries!"

Our next planned fun: we're going to Branson, MO to visit Silver Dollar City and during that trip we will get to spend some time with my parents too.

YTD Debt Pay-off: $7,238.53 FUN!!

Total Debt Pay-off: $31,238.53 (over halfway to the finish line!!)