Get Your Finances In Line In 2009: May Recap

My husband and I are currently on our PAID FOR IN CASH vacation!!! Not that we've ever gone on vacation with a credit card before (or gone on vacation at all for that matter), but I just know this is so much nicer than getting a giant bill next month for all our vacation expenditures. :)

Somehow, by the grace of God, we were able to stash away another $1000 into our savings last month. I honestly have no idea how, because we have nowhere near that amount of extra income every month but....somehow, the Lord made it happen for us. It is so refreshing to finally be debt-free and significantly building our savings so that, in the event of an emergency, job loss, or other financial catastrophe...we would not be feeling hopeless and wondering what to do next.

I also (FINALLY) canceled our credit card last month. I've been meaning to do that for, like....ohh, at least 2 years, and I just finally got around to it. But it feels nice to know that I don't have to keep track of where that card is in our filing cabinet anymore. :) I admit I was kind of disappointed when the woman didn't argue with me to try to keep the card for an emergency. I was really looking forward to explaining to her how we've learned that an EMERGENCY is the absolute WORST time to use a credit card - the one time I can be certain I can't pay it off the next month. But she didn't even press me one bit about it. She simply complied and canceled the card.

....But I guess I'll be okay.

Alright, so on to the good stuff. (The good stuff being: the stuff you don't care about but I that I like to type up anyway because it encourages me to keep on keeping on; keeps me accountable to, um...myself; and gives me another blog post.)

;)

So here's a quick update for the month of May:

Goal #1: Save up and pay CASH for our 5-day vacation to Mackinac Island in June! :) ---- 100% completed ----

Goal #2: Fully fund our 6 month emergency fund and put into a money market account to be left UNTOUCHED unless there is an actual emergency. ---- 40.5% completed ----

Goal #3: Save for my husband to get a "new" (that means used) car.

Goal #4: Raise retirement contributions to 12% (with a 4% match).

Goal #5: Open a money market account for each of our children.

Goal #6: Begin paying extra principal on our mortgage.

Goal #7: Establish a will and testament. ---- Still thinking about working on this... ----

Goal #8: Get disability insurance for both my husband and me. ---- We're in the process of finalizing this for my husband. Who would have thought they don't even offer disability for SAHMs? ----

How are you all doing with your finances, budgeting, etc.? I know nobody will answer this question because it's just FAR too personal, but it seems polite of me to ask. :)

"Not Me!" Monday!

Well, it's time again for another "Not Me!" Monday! post! (I bet ya didn't know I could use 3 exclamation points right in a row like that, did ya?) I'm actually on vacation right now and really wrote this post last week, so there will be no linking to MckMama's specific post, but you can visit her blog to find her "Not Me" Monday Mr. Linky collection if you'd like to read more.
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Last week, my husband and I (well, mostly my husband) built a shelf and installed it into our laundry "room" (aka closet). While doing said task, we certainly did not put our 3 toddlers to bed at approximately 9.30pm, 10.20pm, and 11pm just so we wouldn't awaken them with the sound of the electric screwdriver. Our children are always in bed before 8pm, (Well, that's actually pretty true. They are almost always in bed before 8pm.) so we would never do something like that.

I definitely did not spend a good portion of the day Tuesday thinking that it was Monday. P.S. Thank you, veterans and current military persons, for all your service!

I did not spend an entire van ride home from the store thinking that I might actually crap my pants. Because I had not been so lenient as to not pay attention to what I was eating at Panera Bread and ate WAAYY too much cheese in one sitting. And while driving home, I certainly did not become so desperate as to call a friend of mine to see if I could borrow her toilet to, ya know....borrow, so I wouldn't have to clean out my pants 10 minutes later. I was also not in the least bit somewhat ecstatic to know that she wasn't home and therefore didn't answer the phone to hear me panting my desperate pleas. (I did make it home by the way, and - pun intended - by the seat of my pants!)

There is no way I encouraged my children to watch way too many movies last week while I packed for our vacation (and blogged ahead for this week) instead of standing nearby and coaching them as they diligently practiced their letters and numbers and did a host of other highly educational activities in order to further their little minds.
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Please let me know what you think of these "Not Me!" Monday! posts. Not that it matters. I think they may have taken the place of my previously favorite day of the week (Foto Friday!) in terms of blogging, so I'm likely going to keep them up regardless of what you think. But I do want to know how you feel about them. Really, I do. :)