Thrifty Femme

Personal Goals 2008

• Transfer Roth IRA, old 401Ks, and old pension to discount brokerage firm
  Done 03/2008!
• Contribute maximum limit to Roth IRA for 2007 by April
  Done 04/2008!
• Become credit card debt free by July by paying off credit card #1 before the 0% intro rate ends – on target Pay off credit card #1 before the 0% intro rate ends
  on target* Done 06/2008!
• Pay down car loan by 90% by December 31
  on target slipping Blown!

  Well, the original plan was to triple car payments to pay the car off by April 2009. In order for this to happen I had to stop contributing money to savings. I couldn’t hack not contributing to savings, so I came up with an alternative solution to triple payments on the months and double payments on the even months and contribute the would-be third payment to savings, resulting in a May 2009 payoff.

  This has been working well, but now I am considering transferring the loan balance to a credit card at 0% until October 2009. I would save $450 in interest plus earn interest on the money that would have been used for two or three monthly car payments. The hitch is the application form doesn’t have a place for loans only credit card balance transfers, so I’ll have to call or visit a local branch to see if a loan balance transfer would be processed as a cash advance which would be a deal breaker. The other option would be to do a balance transfer to a credit card with a low balance and then request a credit refund. I’m still mulling this over.

• Continue to contribute 401K to employer match percentage
  on target, might consider contributing more.
• Research long term investment options
  gotta get started I’m reading the Booglehead book. I suppose that is progress.

*This got revamped because I remembered I have another credit card balance with a 0% interest rate that ends in Feb 2009, so I won’t be credit card debt free until Feb 2009.

Short Term Goals

• Determine personal net worth – in progress – Done 04/2008!
• Track aggregated expenses for 2007 – in progess, gotta create more meaningful subcategories to get the unreconciled percentage down O_o – Done 04/2008. I used this budget template from Microsoft to determine better categories and subcategories.

Family Goals 2008

• Rebuild family emergency fund to 20K by December 31 24.5K by April 2009 25.5K by May 2009
  On target

  Well, this keeps changing because I keep finding stuff I should be taking into account the eFund. The original goal of 20K by December is actually on target for successful completion.

• Pay off credit card #1 before the 0% intro rate expires in October
  On target with payment scheduled
• Budget for 2009 vacation(s)
  Currently on target, but will likely have to continually adjust to anticipate increasing airfare prices.

Short Term Goals

• Determine family net worth
  In progress – Done 04/2008!
• Track aggregated expenses for 2007
  In progess, gotta create more meaningful subcategories to get the unreconciled percentage down O_o – Done 04/2008. I used this budget template from Microsoft to determine better categories and subcategories.

  Tentative 2009

  • Pay off credit card #2 before the 0% intro expires in February
    On target with payment scheduled

  Long Term Goals

  • Make some!!
    yeah, still gotta make some…