FINANCIAL GOALS FOR 2012

As I look back over the last 10 years of my life, I have come to realize that one of the major sources of stress in my life comes from my and my husband’s financial situation. There are many times where we are living paycheck to paycheck, basically wading in the water without falling more behind but without making leeway either.

Well 2012 is the year that this is going to stop!

This is the first year that I feel I have a solid plan going into the year; a plan that both I and my hubby are on board with. We have made 3 basic financial goals and a plan on how to get there given our current employment statuses and our current living situation.

Our 3 goals are:
1. PAY DOWN DEBT
2. SAVE MORE IN AN EMERGENCY FUND
3. LIVE ON LESS THAN OUR MEANS

I have never really been open about our finances on this blog, due to the fact that I don’t know if any of our family members read this blog or not. Well that is about to change. I may not go into specific numbers for some things, but I will be more open about our spending and where are debt stands. Because YES we do have debt.

We currently have close to $600 in medical debt, $600 on a Mastercard, $9000 on Discover, $3000 on a student loan from Ball State University, and close to $50000 on federal Direct Student loans when you add together both hubbys and my own. That is depressing. I feel like it is a constant rain cloud over our heads; especially the Mastercard, the Discover card, the medical debt and the Ball State loan. For other reasons the Direct Loans are not a priority for us.

So paying off/ paying down debt is #1 on my list.

Hubby would prefer that we save for emergencies, and for just in case. I can understand his point. In the past 7 years we have been through 4 moves, job losses, hospitalizations, surgeries, car problems, etc. I can see why he wants to save and not worry about debt. This is one area that we disagree on.

However, as in any good marriage compromise is KEY! So I have come up with a budget plan that allows for us to compromise. Basically our budget rules look like this:

Hubby’s 2 paychecks a month--go towards household bills (rent, water, gas, electric, phone, internet, directv, trash, car insurance, credit cards, loans, etc. ) At the end of the month, whatever is leftover from these paychecks, ½ will go toward savings, and ½ will go toward debt repayment.
My 2 paychecks will go toward variable expenses (groceries, gifts, eating out, etc). At the end of month, whatever is leftover, ½ will go toward savings and ½ will go toward debt repayment.

We will be working on paying off debt in this order:
Mastercard
Medical
Discover card
Ball State loan
Direct Loans

I will be trying to make some extra money from different sources and will be using online resources to help cut costs in some areas of my life. Currently hubby is a member of Pinecone Research and we will be using those payments that get deposited into Paypal for debt repayment at the end of each month. I also use Mypoints for Walmart gift cards, and Swagbucks that I will use for Amazon gift cards. When I buy things online I will be looking through ebates first in order to be able to earn money back for what I am already buying. I am also planning on doing summer tutoring to supplement my part time income as well. I would also like to implement 186 NO-SPEND days throughout the year.

I am hoping that this works out. This year will be somewhat different in that I may have to review and change these goals as I will be going on unpaid maternity leave from April through the end of the school year. Then I don’t work at all during the summer. That may change some of the things that we can and/or cannot do.

Do you have any suggestions about how I can tweak this to make it better?
Have you made any financial goals for 2012?