Goal 1 - Complete Hallway: This was finished in the first two weeks of the month. You can see the finished photos here. We already had the wall and trim paint but I believe we needed to buy another gallon of wall paint, we purchased switch plate covers, molding to go around the doors, a curtain for the laundry center and new paint brushes including a really cool one for cutting in. We spent a total of $249.01 (part of this is shelving for our living room).
Goal 2 - Put $200 In Savings: This was a failure. We did actually put $200 in savings but had to take money back out due to my overzealous credit card payment budget. I will learn from this.
Goal 3 - Put An Additional $600 on CC#1: It was actually an extra $400 but I am happy with that. CC#1 is 62% paid off which makes me pretty happy.
Goal 4 - Actually Use Our Wii Fit: Yes we did use it last month but not nearly as much as I would like. That ol' perfectionism streak just kills me every month!
Goal 5 - Lose A Couple Pounds: I did REALLY well at this my first week losing around 8 pounds (I'm sure quite a bit was water) but I have yo-yo'd since and in total lost 2.4 this month. Not as good as I would like but still a negative number.
I have learned that I am too agressive in paying off the credit cards and that leaves us with not enough money until pay day and needing to dip in to our savings account. Thankfully we DID NOT use our credit cards at all this month. I have updated our debt percentages on my sidebar and made some adjustments to our budget for this month.
Goals for February
- Paint living room walls and trim (trim is done and C is starting on the walls tonight)
- Make DVD shelving
- Tile hearth
- Buy couch (if tax return comes in)
- Put $200 in savings
- Put $300 divided between CC #'s 3, 4 & 5
- Use Wii fit three times per week
- Lose 5 pounds
C and I discussed what we have that is important right now and how to divy up the $1200 we have at the end of the month after bills, minimum payments and silly things like food. Some may wonder why we are doing things like working on our living room and buying a new couch when we have debt to pay off.
Our living room is where we spend 95% of our time and it's been half finished for more years than I like to admit. Originally I wanted to complete the living room this month but that would not allow us to put money in savings or any extra on the credit cards (there is that overzealousness again). Plus, the projects in the living room will cost more than what we spent on the hallway.
Our couch is OK as far as comfort is concerned. It was a thrift store find for $30 that I was going to slipcover. It fits three people, two comfortably. We are spending part of our tax return for a new couch and the rest will go to savings. The couch is fine when it's just C and I but when his two teenage kids are here it's quite cramped quarters.
Our hearth has had cracked and missing tile for years and its a total eye sore. We also need to beef up our mantle, mount our TV over the fireplace and mount shelving for our components (already purchased) but that will be reserved for March and then the living room will be done.
My concession is to wait and finish our master bedroom and bathroom until after the credit cards are completely paid off.
My car will be paid off in November of this year, it's not running the best and right now our only transportation. At least we can carpool. We suspect C's car needs a new head gasket. C's car is really a two seater so it makes more sense to pay off mine and replace it. That being said, we want to save at least $5000 for a down on a new car. We do plan to hang on to my car but we need to be prepared to replace it in the event we need to.
The ultimate goal is to have the credit cards paid off ASAP but our first baby step goal is just getting all five of them under 50% of the credit limit. If you combine the amount we need to do that plus a down payment that is a pretty significant amount of money.
So, this was quite a lengthy post. I feel good about the February goals and watch for living room updates to come!
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