Order of the Financial House Part Deux . . .

We have been making remarkable progress toward our Goal of getting the financial house in order.  This past week

• We sold our boat.  Have you ever had one of those Happy and Sad at the same time moments?  Selling the boat was one of them.  We love boating.  We love being on the water.  Problem is, we live AT LEAST an hour from any water big enough to use this boat.  So, we made the grown up decision to sell it.  
• With the proceeds from the boat sale, we paid off our son's truck! (and had a little left over for some other stuff) YAY!!!!!!!
• I made the final payments on the medical bills from Ed's last kidney stone surgery.  Thank goodness that is over and we hope to never have to go through that again!
• I started building our Bill Binder and Budget.  --  This will take a bit of time to get sorted out.  The goal is to have it completed and begin using it fully on May 1.  Until then, I'm going to keep working on paying off stuff.

Order of the Financial House

Goal # 3 for the year of the goal is to get our financial house in order.  WOW what a major under taking, but something that must be done before we become empty-nesters in the next couple of years.  In an effort to help me keep on track with this goal, I'm going to break it down into sub-goals.

1. Contact our current mortgage company and work with them on reducing our interest rate for a better payment.  We completed this goal on March 8 and reduced our payment by $293 a month!  
2. Pay-off our son's truck.  Our plan is to have this completed by June at the latest!  Every extra cent we get right now is going toward this goal.
3. Build a "Bill Binder".  After hours of researching how to handle budgets and bills, I've determined that this will be the best way to handle things so that Ed is aware of our finances too.  (Poor guy, he's clueless!)
4. Develop a Budget and a Spending Plan.  We've always sort of functioned with a "budget"--meaning what comes in goes right back out.  The goal for this year is to develop a budget that allows us to concentrate on debt reduction.  I'm still researching this one.

We welcomed 2013 in with good times and great friends and after many years of failed resolutions, I decided that this year I would not make the FIRST resolution.

Instead I'm moving through 2013 by completing GOALS instead of worrying about resolutions.

Goal # 1--Sit for and Pass the PMI PMP Certification Exam. This was the hardest freakin' test I've ever taken in my life.  Goal # 1 was completed on February 27, 2013.  I'd like to say with flying colors, but that'd be stretching the truth quite a bit.  But now I'm Certified, or Certifiable, I'm not 100% on that.

Goal # 2--Create a Blog.  I didn't realize this was a goal at all, until tonight when I sat thinking of a way to make my goals for this year have a more visual impact.

Goal # 3--Get our financial house in order.  This is a doozy and since it's such a large, all encompassing goal.  I'll have to break it down into smaller more manageable units.  The first step is to do a little research and see if I can come up with some plans for debt reduction and budgeting.  I'm leaning toward using an envelope system for our discretionary spending with a plan for savings.

Goal # 4--Loose that final 30 or 40 pounds.

I'm feeling pretty good about the year of the goal--we are 3 months in and I have two goals completed and one in progress.

It's gonna be a great year!