Goal Setting - The Money Addition

 Today in my budgeting series I'm going to talk about setting goals. I shared my 2013 goals in this post. But I want to take a minute to talk about different kinds of budget related goals.

Here are a few examples of some budget/financial goals you could set:

- stay in budget
- pay of debt
- save an emergency fund
- buy a car
- spend $200 less a month on groceries
- go on vacation
- build a deck on the house

All of these goals are great, but setting them is only the first step. Actually achieving your goals doesn't haven't to be hard. All you have to do is set up a simple plan and follow it.

Here is how I would plan for the goals listed above.

1. Stay in budget. The first step in this goal is creating a realistic budget. I'm going to dedicate an entire post to writing a budget soon. But for now remember that realistic is the keyword in budgeting. For example, if you spend $800 a month on groceries now then you shouldn't budget only $200. Be realistic, but I'll talk more about that later.

2. Pay off debt. This is an awesome goal but you need to break it down farther. For example if you have $50,000 in student loans, $15,000 in a car loan and $5,000 in credit card debt then you have $70,000 in debt total. Now if your goal is "pay off debt" and you just throw money at your $70,000 hole without any sort of plan - you'll feel like you're not getting anywhere fast. If you make a more specific goal like - pay off $5,000 in debt this year - then it's simple to divide $5,000 by 12 and see that you need to pay $417 a month in order to reach you'll goal.You have $5,000 in credit card debt so by the end of the year you could have your credit card debt wiped out. When you write out your budget each month you'll know that you'll need to assign $417 per month to your credit card debt in order to stay on track. Obviously you eventually want to pay all $70,000 of it off, but you need to divide your pie into bite size pieces so it is much easier to chew.

3. Save an emergency fund, buy a car, go on vacation and build a deck are all similar goals. They all require saving. A tip for saving money is add it as a line in your budget just like an expense. Don't wait to save your "leftover" money at the end of each month. You need have a plan. Say you want to go on a $2,000 vacation in August. You have 8 months to save. Therefore when you write out each months budget, you need to assign $250 for vacation. When you go to pay your bills, you transfer $250 to your savings account (or wherever you are keeping it) so it's safe and sound and won't be spent till vacation time. Savings needs to be a priority if you want to see your money gain any traction.

4. Save $200 a month on your grocery budget. In order to achieve this goal you need to change some of your habits. If you go to the store without a list, then you should try writing out what you want to buy before you go so that you can avoid impulse buys. (Some helpful tips when writing your shopping list can be found here.) If you are use to eating a lot of prepackaged meals then maybe you need to start cooking more from scratch. Generally a homemade pizza is much cheaper than a frozen pizza. Possibly you should start taking cash when you grocery shop instead of plastic. Coupons are also another option for cutting grocery expenses. Whatever is causing you to spend so much now needs to change in order for you to reach your goal in the future.

There you have it. My opinion/tips on money related goal setting. If you have any questions or maybe a different goal scenario you'd like my thoughts on; just let me know in the comments.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year Everyone! Two thousand thirteen is finally here and like the majority of people I am setting some new goals. My hubby and I had a quick talk about some goals this morning so I thought I'd share a few.

Here are a few of my personal goals:
-Play the piano every single day of 2013. One of my goals for 2012 was to memorize a piece of music. As I was reflecting on why I didn't achieve this goal, I realized it was because I felt like I needed to dedicate a significant amount of time each day to working on memorizing the piece. When my day was busy and I couldn't fit it in I would think I don't have time I'll just do it tomorrow. Well then tomorrow would come and I would again be busy; and the cycle would repeat itself. So this year, even if I play only one song a day by the end of the year I will have played that song 365 times and after that, I should definitely have it memorized.
-At the end of 2013 love every single item in my wardrobe. I talked about that in this post but I plan on working on this throughout the whole year.
-Look presentable always.  This goals goes along with the previous goal and it was inspired by the book Lessons from Madame Chic: 20 Stylish Secrets I Learned While Living in Paris by Jennifer L. Scott. I will be talking more about this book in the future, but the chapter she wrote about looking presentable always felt like a way to make my "love every item in my wardrobe" goal have a practical purpose.
-Learn to sew. There are a lot of projects I want to do around the house and being able to sew would be so very helpful. I received a brand new sewing machine for Christmas and I am so excited to get started with it.

My hubby and I also set some goals as a couple:
-Save money. This may seem like a general goal but really we are striving towards saving a certain amount of money. If saving more money in 2013 is also a goal of yours, I would recommend your goal be save a certain amount of money for a certain purpose. For example maybe you want to save $8,000 for a new (at least new to you) car, or maybe you just want to save $1,000 for a small emergency fund. Whatever it is, make it a measurable goal.
-Go somewhere new. We would like to try a few small things like a new restaurant or a new museum. But we would also like to travel to a new city or go to a theme park we haven't been before. We will see where 2013 takes us.
-Paint at least one room in our house. Growing up I was never allowed to paint my bedroom, and now that I have a house of my own I can't wait to paint. This goal to prevent me from being so indecisive about a color that I don't paint anything at all. It is time to make decisions and get some color up on those walls.

I'm really excited about all of these goals because I feel like they are definitely all within reach. How about you? What measurable goals are you making for 2013?
 

Top Five Money Tips for 2013

The year two thousand thirteen is almost upon us. This is the time of year for reflection and goal setting. Money management is an area that almost everyone wants to improve in. For this reason I'm going to do a little series of posts about improving your money/budgeting skills for 2013.

First up, my top 5 money tips.

1. Set an appointment with yourself. Once a week make it a point to sit down and pay your upcoming bills, update your budget and make sure however you are tracking your expenses is up to date. Think about it this way, if you have a TV show you always watch once a week, you can set aside a half hour or so to keep your money in order. By making this appointment with yourself, you'll avoid late fees on bills, you'll be more likely to stay within budget, and you will have a better sense of your money as a whole.

2. Track your expenses. (Look for an upcoming post elaborating on this.) A lot of people don't do it because they think it's too restrictive or it's too time consuming. I honestly feel that it's more freeing because when I'm shopping I know how much I can spend and still be able to pay my bills when I get home. As for the "it's too time consuming" excuse, there are so many ways to keep track of your expenses that it really doesn't have to take that much time. Plus if you set an appointment with yourself to keep up with it once a week, it really won't be that much trouble at all.

3. Realize your money spending weaknesses and come up with solutions to fix them. Whether it's spending too much on fast food because you don't have a plan for dinner, or always paying late fines because you forgot about a bill, library books, etc. Try to come up with a simple solution to fix it. The fast food fix? Maybe you have some homemade chicken noodle soup frozen in the freezer so you know when you're running late you can just heat and eat it for dinner. (I did this last winter and it worked like a charm, one evening I made chicken noodle soup for dinner and just made a lot extra, then froze it in individual serving size sandwich bags. Dinner could be made in under 5 minutes, you can't beat that.) As for the late fines that brings me to my next point...

4. Use your calender. Lots of people use some sort of planner or agenda (paper or electronic) to keep track of their work or social schedule but have you ever thought about writing down some budget reminders on there. Write on your calender your weekly money management appointment with yourself but also write down when your cable bill is due, when your library books are due. This way when you see these things coming up on your calender, you can take the necessary steps to take care of them on time.

5. Set goals. I am definitely going to devote a whole post to financial goal setting but its definitely something worth mentioning here. Having goals gives you something to work towards and something to measure yourself against. If you're married then it's important that you and your spouse are working towards the same goals. Whether your goal is saving a certain amount, paying off debt, or finishing your basement you definitely need to set a goal, write it down (and post it somewhere you can see like the fridge or if you don't want everyone who comes over to see it maybe some place like inside a kitchen cabinet door) and then come up with a plan of how you are actually going to achieve that goal.

I hope these 5 tips help at least one person out there achieve some of their 2013 financial goals. So what are some other areas you are making New Years resolutions in?

Hanging Backwards

I did it! I hung all of my clothes backwards! (Okay, so that's not really a statement that deserves an exclamation point.) But it is one of the first steps in improving my wardrobe. Allow me to explain...

By the end of 2013 I want all of the clothes in my closet to be pieces I love. In order to have a closet full of loveable clothes only, I have to weed out the not so loveable clothes. I saw the idea to turn all of your hangers backwards (on Pinterest but the link led me to this blog ) and decided to try out this closet clutter cleaning method. Once you've worn something you can hang it back up in your closet normally. This takes very little time and is an easy way of seeing what you're wearing and what you aren't wearing.

If you change out your clothes seasonally then I would donate all of your clothes on the "still facing backwards" hangers in the summer (which means you haven't worn them all winter long) and then again at the end fall (which means you haven't worn them at all in the summer or fall.) I do not change out my closet seasonally (all my clothes are available all the time) so I'm curious what will still be facing backwards by the end of 2013. Although, if I notice something is still backwards after a few months and I know I'm never going to wear that again. I'll probably donate it then instead of waiting all the way till the end of the year.

Another step I'm adding to this process is after I buy something new I'm going to hang it up backwards until I wear it once. On more than one occasions I've purchased a new piece of clothing thinking I'm sure I'll wear this and then never ever actually end up wearing it. It's sad really, and a waste of money. Hopefully this will help me stop this pointless spending in the future.

We have all had those moments where we need to try on a few outfits before we decide what to wear. If I try something on a backward hanger on, and then end up not wearing it, I will hang it up backwards again until I actually wear it somewhere other then my closet.

What do you think? Anyone else going to give this idea a try?

Christmas 2012

I love Christmas (I've said that before I know) but I really love everything about Christmas.

This year my hubby and I had the opportunity to visit some of his out-of-town family. After traveling through some scary weather we finally made it to his grandmothers house. It was so nice just to relax and visit with everyone. I enjoyed getting to know my husbands family even better.

We came home for Christmas and our cat Ellie was so excited to see us she has barely left our side.
Here is me and Ellie on Christmas morning.

We spent rest of the day with our families. I snapped a picture of my parents dog hiding from the Christmas chaos.

He's such a good dog and didn't even blink an eye while I was snapping pictures of him.

I hope everyone had a safe and Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas

I'm spending the day with my family but I wanted to leave you with a few more Christmas song lyrics to celebrate this glorious day!

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And heav’n and nature sing,
And heav’n and nature sing,
And heav’n, and heav’n, and nature sing.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

The True Meaning of Christmas

Sometimes a Christmas song says it best.

O Holy Night!
The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of our dear Saviors birth;
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
'Til He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn;
Fall on your knees,
Oh, hear the angels voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born!
O night, O holy night,
O night divine!