Time wasters

My goal for this year is to stop time wasters. Facebook has become a huge time waster for me. I even play those stupid games!!

This month I have deleted all but one game. I know, I need to stop the last one too. Maybe I'll do that next.

I have also started to 'hide' people's post that I really don't need to see. I have some very old friends on there from high school. It's nice to be able to catch up through them on FB, but I don't need to see their every post. I also have some people who really aren't considered friends, just people I know. I really don't need to see their every post! This 'hiding' has saved lots of time on FB.

This is my time waster focus for January. I need to pick one for February to focus on.

What are your time wasters?

Goals for 2009

I'm keeping most of last years goals, but adding a couple new ones.

1. Keep reading (never a problem) and keep reading stuff out of my comfort zone.
Shouldn't be hard with the book club. I also follow several book blogs and they are the ones who give me ideas what to read. Thanks all you book bloggers!!!!!
And since we have the book club, I will be meeting new people. So, I took that goal off.

2. Continue to pay down debt. Currently at $29,000 appx. Want to be at $15,000 or less at this time next year.

3. Continue to do more cheap family stuff. We won't be doing many open houses in the cold weather. Reading to my son and playing family board games are on the list. Oh, and we can all play the Wii together!!

4. Volunteer more. Once the Humane Society is complete and on my side of town, my daughter and I will start going there again. In the meantime, I really need to find something else to do. Our church will be a good place to start.
5. Continue to go to church twice a month. I also want to get into a better habit of reading my daily devotional books. I have Daily Walk with God, and Simple Abundance.

6. Blog more pictures.

7. Exercise. I've started my habit this month. I've been getting on the Elliptical machine every morning. I want to do the Wii Fit at least 3 times a week. In the warmer months I will find a class at the YMCA to take. Eating better only takes you so far, the exercise will get you where you want to be.

8. Continue to eat healthy and watch portion sizes. Jenny Craig has really helped with this one. I honestly can not eat as much as I used to, there is just no room in my tummy anymore! I want to stick with their meals until I reach my goal weight, then I will start to practice on my own.

Update on 2008 goals

Well, I went back to read my 2008 goals. I forgot a couple, but it looks like I did pretty good!

1. Read more. CHECK! I've read a ton and really expanded what I read.
I read the Twilight series. I wasn't going to, but my friends basically forced me. I love them for that.
A Rare and Curious Gift is something I would not have picked, but I'm really enjoying it.
Jen Lancaster.............I really did not like her book. Something about a prada bag. I don't even want to remember the name.
Eat, Pray, Love..........I haven't finished it, but it was a really good book. I started it in the summer, and haven't finished it. I think it's a summer read. But, it is on our bookclub list for April so I need to get it done!
David Sedaris. I read Holidays on Ice and LOVED it! I'm defiantly going to check out his other books.
There were more, but I can't remember. They should be in my Library Thing sidebar.

2. Pay down debt. CHECK! We are doing great on this. We could have done better, but since we like to spend money so much.......we gave ourselves rewards. If we wouldn't have done the rewards, we would not have kept up with the payoffs. Our rewards for this year were the new Camera, Elliptical machine, TV, and Wii.
The camera gets tons of use, but I do need to get some pictures posted!!
The elliptical machine has been used alot. I did it every morning last week and plan to continue. It should soon be a habit!
The new TV was not planned, but a great deal we could not pass. We really wanted just a small one to put downstairs for the new Wii. But we found a 42" LCD for only $600. Just a couple hundred more than a smaller one. Paid in cash.

3. Do more family stuff. CHECK! We found a very fun and free activity this summer. We went to open houses on the weekends. As a family we discussed what features we wanted in a new house and what we did not like. We also discussed prices, advantages/disadvantages of certain areas, taxes, insurance, interest rates on loans, the national housing crisis, and anything else that came up. I think our kids have a new appreciation of our current house and now realize what goes into owning a home. They loved it!

4. Not get pissy about DH travels. This was so easy in the second part of the year. He hasn't gone anywhere since the summer.

5. Meet new people. CHECK! One of my friends started a book club. I expanded it by starting a meetup.com group for it. Lots of new people have joined, but only 2 have came to the meetings. I expect this to increase after the holidays. The 2 ladies I did meet were great! This also ties into me meeting my reading goal.

6. Stop watching so much TV. OOPS! Even with my schedule being so busy, I still watch alot of TV.

7. Volunteer more. OOPS! I promise that once the new Humane Society is built, I will do this. With the gas prices up this year and my schedule getting so full, it was really hard to drive all the way down there. I know there are other places that could use my time, but this is where I want to do it at.

8. Go to Church more. CHECK! We go twice a month. Our daughter even goes to the school at our church now. This time last year, I would have never thought that possible. It is such a great school and we have a completely new daughter out of the deal. It has been so good for her.

9. Blog more. I'm off and on for this one. But I think I'm doing ok. I just need to do more pictures!!

A review of my New Years goals.

Without looking at them, I would like the think that I have done fairly well. In January, I posted a list of goals, things I wanted to improve in, start doing, etc.... I tried to pick some that were reasonable.

Now, lets see how I'm doing.


1. Read more. I think I've done well with this one. I'm not sure how many books I've read, I guess I could start tracking that. But, I know I've tried several new authors and I have enjoyed them all.

2. Pay down debt. We have done great with this one!! And we continue to work on this one. It will be a little harder now that I have closed my business and that income is gone, but we will still stay on track.


3. Do more family oriented stuff. We've been spending more time playing games and stuff. We also came up with a fun and free activity that we have been doing on Sunday afternoons. We go to open houses. The kids love it! We started this because we wanted to see some of the other houses in our area and compare them to ours. We are doing several home improvements and want to make sure they are reasonable for our area. We also want to get an idea what we can list our house for when the time comes. So far things are looking good!

4. Try not to get pissy with DH on all the traveling he is going to be doing. He's not here to ask, but I think I have been better.

5. Meet more people. Yes, I have meet some new people.

6. Stop watching so much TV. TiVo makes this really hard.

7. Volunteer more. No, I still suck at this one.

8. Start going to church. Yes, we have been going once or twice a month. I'm even transferring my membership from my home church. That is huge for me.

Goals for this week

1. Live to see next weekend. Seriously.
2. Read 2 more chapters in Economics. Already have the first 2 read.
3. Notes on all 4 chapters in Econ.
4. Read two chapters in Managerial Accounting
5. Do the problems in both chapters for Acctg.
6. Take 3 quizes in Econ and 1 test. Pass them all.
7. Do laundry.
8. Finish payroll, I have amounts done, just have to write and mail the checks!
9. Work at least 30 hours.
10. I have 40 pet sits booked for the week and hope to do them all myself.
11. Fill out FSA form to get some reimbursements.
12. Buy a couple Wall Street Journals to write an article summary on by next Monday.
13. Get DH to bill for his side job and stick some of that into savings, and make an extra cc payment.
14. Call to get our yard marked for digging.
15. Find someone to haul all our junk off. You should see the pile of wood from the deck!
16. Don't let my son's tomato plants die.
17. Finish getting all the weeds out of the flower garden. Right now it is a weed garden and not very attractive.
19. Catch up on invoices.
21. Get DH to call insurance company, have them take pool off and add flood insurance. Oh and to price check with another company.
20. Stop blogging, I mean procrastinating, I mean blogging........

What would you do with $10,000?

I'll tell you what I did with it over the last 6 months. Paid on credit cards. Since Christmas we have paid off 1/4 of our cc debt. While I am very proud of us.............I'm also pretty bummed about it. I mean seriously!! $10,000.00!!! I think of what I could have done with all that money, but couldn't because of our debt. It angers me.

I could have a very nice savings account, a new washer and dryer, and a new pool.

Instead, our savings account is skimpy, the washer and dryer may die any day, and we are tearing out our pool. (pictures of the pool to come soon)

As I have promised in the past, here is the amount of credit card debt that we owe.
In December it was $41,887.47
Since then we have been charged $3,895.44 in interest (ouch!)
Now our total is $31,888.02

If we can keep up the payments, we will be credit card debt free by December 2010!! But, it will be tricky because I have decided to go back to school for a second degree. So, my paychecks are a little smaller, but we are cutting back even more. Hopefully we can still meet that goal.

On top of paying all of that, I have this in savings (it will be gone in a few months)
$1,800 for house repairs (pics to come)
$2,400 for my daughters braces (her dad will pay the other half)
$2,500 for a new fence - and that's only the back end, can't believe the cost of that!!
and $600 for tutoring for my daughter
leaving us with $1,000 for an ER fund.

Not too bad! I refuse to charge anything! If we don't have the cash for it, we don't get it. I'm ashamed it took $41,000 in debt to finally grasp that concept, but better late than never.

I forgot a goal!

I went out with my girls group on Saturday. There was supposed to be a couple new ladies there, but they did not show. There were a couple however that I haven't spent much time getting to know.

It was a very nice evening. We started at P.F. Chang's then went to a nice and quiet bar to finish our evening. We were having such a great time talking away, that we couldn't believe it when they were kicking us out at closing time.

Sorry, no pictures...........

Oh, and DH returned from Minnesota on Friday. I broke a goal that night. We went out to eat, and spend $60 on the credit card. Damn me. But, it did count as family time!! Do you think one good and one bad cancels each other out?? I learned that somewhere, and I think I'll apply it to that night.

DH will be home until the 21st, then it's off to China for 2 weeks. But. I. am. not. pissy. about. it. Not at all.

How did my weekend goals go? Shitty.

I got this done from my list
1. laundry
2. kids chores
5. print reports for business taxes, but haven't reviewed them
11. clear off desk

I also sorted mail, updated invoices, updated my website (kinda), and filled out permission slips and wrote checks for kids school activities. Kinda cleaned the kitchen.

So, this weeks goals are
1. payroll/taxes
2. organize reports for taxes
3. take daughter shopping
4. get DH and son to clean fish tank
5. go to home depot for new blinds
6. balance checking accounts
7. pay bills
8. make banana bread
9. update mileage driven last year to write off on taxes
10. reveiw credit cards
11. finish deep cleaning kitchen
12. go to social security office and change name

I'm also going to simplify meals. I'm going to www.simplesupperstogo.com to make 6 meals, then freeze them and thaw/bake when needed! It saves a ton of time and the cost is not that high, about what I would pay anyway.

This will give me more time for family and to keep my house organized.

I also came across this website this weekend. I'm still reading through some of it, but it looks like it might help me organize my time/house. www.flylady.net I'll keep you up to date on it. The partial kitchen cleaning I did was cleaning my sink, as talked about on the website.

This weekends goals/to do list

To hold myself more accountable, I'm putting all out there for the world to see.

1. Laundry
2. get kids to do chores
3. payroll
4. payroll taxes
5. get business paperwork together for taxes
6. take daughter shopping to spend gift cards
7. go to home depot and get new blinds (mom gave us $ for Christmas)
8. get DH and son to clean fish tank
9. balance checking account
10. pay bills
11. clear off desk
12. figure out which credit card to start paying down first. I keep going back and forth on this one. The highest interest one, or the one with the lowest balance.

To expand on the credit card debt. There is much controversy in the financial world on how to pay your credit card debt down.

Some say to pay off the one with the smallest balance first, and just keep moving down the line. They this this gives a person a sense of accomplishment because they can see they have less debt by having less bills every month. But, in the end you will have spent more money, because your highest cards may have the highest interest.

Others say to pay the ones with high interest off. In the end you will be spending less money, because you will be paying less on interest. But, you don't see the immediate relief if those cards are the ones with the highest balance.

Maybe one if these days I will start posting my progress on this, right now I'm embarrassed by how much debt we have.
Over the last couple months, I've been making spreadsheets and such to keep track of our debt and I think I've finally came up with one I like. If I stick to my plan, we should be good by 2010. By good, I mean our credit card debt close to done. They doesn't include student loans and such.

I'm only paying the minimum on student loans because I can write that interest off on my taxes. After credit cards are paid, I will move onto those.

Ok, I think that is enough for this post, better get that laundry started!!