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Archive for December, 2017

Trying to Make Goals

December 19th, 2017 at 03:54 pm

I am still indecisive about my goals for 2018. My life seems so unstable with the remodel and pulled in so many directions that I don't know where to put my efforts. I know that my main goal isn't even a financial goal. I just want to finish our house.

I also know that I have never been able to finish my yearly goals and that is disappointing. Especially this year, I bombed them. So for 2018 I am going to try to be much more realistic about what I am able to achieve.

Here are my preliminary thoughts:

1.) Finish remodel
2.) Refinance mortgage
3.) Pay off $5,000 in non-mortgage debt
4.) Add $1,000 to truck fund
5.) Add $1,000 to Roth

My Roth goal is a LOT smaller this year. This is for several reasons. #1 being that husband is going to start contributing to a 401K this year. #2 is that I want this year to be about paying down debt. I will happily add more than $1,000 to my Roth, but I don't want to stress myself out with too lofty goals. So I will start here and adjust if needed.

Hopefully 2018 will be a calmer and less stressful year! I just want to tie up some loose ends, and finish all our ongoing projects to get back to some sort of normal.

Getting Worried

December 18th, 2017 at 04:27 pm

Husband's work still hasn't given out their Christmas bonus... It is normally deposited by now. No one knows what is going on, but the workers are starting to worry that there won't be a bonus this year. I hope not. So many people live check to check and husband said lots of people have already spent that money on Christmas presents, etc. (Including us!)

If it doesn't come we will manage. But the thought of a company not giving out a bonus (which they have given out for 75 years) makes me sick. How could they do that to their workers? They continue to get greedier and greedier, so it wouldn't be a huge surprise. Husband is saying people will strike if they withhold the bonus. I hope they are just taking longer than normal. *fingers crossed*

In other news, house is slowly going along. Still waiting on the mud/taper. He was supposed to start today but no word yet. :/ That is holding up a lot of progress.

Still trying to figure out goals for 2018. I will have to make another post for that.

401K with Matching!

December 4th, 2017 at 09:10 pm

Husband's job is going to be offering 401ks with Vanguard in 2018! How exciting!

Also, they will 100% match contributions up to 3% and 50% match up to 5%.

For now I think we are going to start with 3%. They said you can change the amount at any time. So once our budget crisis is over hopefully we can up it to 5%.

With this 401k I'm not sure if they are doing away with profit sharing then? I kind of hope not. Because on average they have contributed about $2,000 a year. If they do 3% contribution matching they will only be giving us about $1,000 a year. Ugh. BUT at least it will be with Vanguard and accessible. Right now the profit sharing is all very sketchy. We don't know where the funds are and have no way to track them. They just give us a statement of what we have once a year. It doesn't really feel like our money.

Mortgage & 2nd Income

December 1st, 2017 at 02:40 pm

I paid my mortgage today. Balance is at $44,217.39!

I missed my 2nd job work hours goal this month by one hour. Frown Booo. But I am only looking at about $20 short on bills not counting the $300 I am still owed so that's good news. I'll do better this month!

Hoping the Christmas bonus will get here next week. Also hoping we get husband's profit sharing update soon.

Got the plumbing and septic hooked up in the addition! Also ordered the last big piece of the puzzle today, the flooring. Things are slowly but surely getting done.