FINANCIAL GOALS UPDATE

We started our spending diet {term explained and inspiration here} in January 2013 and I am proud to say that it's a success {so far}.  We cut our monthly spending allowances down to less than a third of what they used to be. Crazy, I know! It has been an adjustment and we don't get to go on spending sprees as much as we used to but we are pumping up our savings which is really nice. 

Peacefulness is this Cherry blossom tree on a Sunday walk.

We were able to meet one of our spending goals which is to pay off my credit card earlier this month!!!!!!!!

When I made that last payment in early April, it was incredible. I have had credit card debt ever since I graduated from high school (10 years now). It was never anything too crazy. For a long time it was under $1,000 but it was just a burden. At the highest balance, I had over $6,000 in debt at one point and I just knew it had to stop.  Part of the problem was that I relied on it after I "ran out of money" at the end of each month and I used it as a crutch to get me to the next paycheck and I just felt like it was a cycle that I could never get out of. But now that it's paid off, I don't even have the urge to charge anything! Because I don't want my balance to be anything but 0.00. I am pretty proud of us for being able to save and pay off my credit card so quickly.

My credit card never looked so good.

From this post in September 2012:

My Financial Goals for the next 2 years:

1. Pay off my credit card debt   ACCOMPLISHED 4/2013

2. Start a savings account and put money away each month  {{IN PROGRESS}}

 

Now, how do I reward myself? As far as shopping goes, I have never been much of a bargain shopper.  Most of the time I make myself decide if I like something before I look at the price tag so it doesn't sway me either way. Sometimes I set a limit for how much I think it's worth.  I try to spend "smarter" which means thinking about things for a couple days before buying them but doing that got me into trouble when my size was sold out the very next day. So sad!!!! Like most things in life, I think spending money is all about balance.

 

Now that tax season is {almost} over, I am going to start having a lot more free time on my hands. This is where it will get tricky with the spending diet. But if we can keep up our plan, we will be in a lot better financial shape now than we were just 6 months ago.

 

If I can do it, you can too!

 

Cheers,

Kim

Our Spending Diet

In other news, we have started a "spending diet" as inspired by my friend Megan, who was inspired by a blog called {And Then We Saved} - I was going to do a "spending fast" which means no spending AT ALL outside of basic necessities: rent, utilities, groceries, cell phones, student loan payments... wow... that is a lot of necessities... but I digress. and I needed to start with baby steps. We now get an allowance that is less than 1/3 of what it was before we started the diet. But I think it will be good to focus on saving before spending {vs} spending first. And we can discuss larger purchases together and decide if you want to do them or not. Another thing we are both doing is putting away a little money each week in our savings account. I posted it to my facebook wall, but its basically $1 for week 1 of 2013, $2 for week 2... etc.. to $52 for week 52 and we should each have $1,300+ saved up by 12/31/13! Pretty neat right?

I had some gift cards from Christmas so I went shopping. Ooops, not the best start to our spending diet, you say? I made sure to only go to stores where I had gift cards. And I only bought one top - on sale, thankyouverymuch. It's a shirt I could wear to work too. Score! And it was only $22!

My new shirt from the loft!
My brother asked if i was preggers after he saw this photo
The answer is NO.

The second ironic thing that happened today is that I got a parking ticket. It was my first parking ticket ever :( Long story short {I hate when people say that}, I parked in a parking lot adjacent to the one I was supposed to. I am a freak about any kind of extra charge or fine, but there isn't much I can do about it so I just wrote a check for $45 and I am going to mail it tomorrow so I don't have to worry about it anymore.  My bad. But it's pretty amazing that I lived in Seattle for 4.5 years and hadn't gotten a parking ticket, right? Right. 

:(

I miss blogging! Things have been so crazy lately! But I am hoping to find more time to blog...