Hello all! It's been a crazy year+ since I last posted. In that time...
We had another child! We're now a family of four plus a golden retriever. My little boys are already great friends, and my mom is their "daycare provider", which is working out really well for everyone. Pregnancy was really rough, so I feel like I lost most of 2014. Let's just say pregnancy and I are NOT friends. Not planning on doing that anytime soon, if ever again. Finances this past year took a back seat, but...
We paid off our first car! And all of our student loans (no debt!)! And then bought a new van (more debt! at 0% though)! And have a house down payment (soon to have way more debt!)! Not bad for pretty much ignoring life while either working or being miserable on the couch.
We've been house hunting for a few months, but in our price range in our area, there aren't a whole lot of choices besides small and fixer upper. Both of which I'm looking forward to having. Small will keep the clutter down (I hope), and I love fixing up houses/doing construction (I have lots of experience, except in electrical, which my brother/dad have). We've bid on a few different houses, but each one has had a weird fluke happen and we didn't get them. C'est la vie.
So, I have some simple goals for 2015:
1) Continue to save until we have a house. I have enough for down payment and closing costs, but I would love to have a larger cushion for the fixing up so that some of it won't have to go on a credit card temporarily.
2) Once we have a house, I want to at least round up our payment to the nearest $50 increment. Maybe more depending on what the actual payment ends up being, and how much we need in order to fix the house.
3) I also would like to increase our emergency fund from $3,000 to $5,000 this next year. Maybe even get it to my ideal of $6,000, but we'll see how many fixes our new house will end up needing.
They seem to be pretty simple goals, but I have a hunch that 2015 is going to be a year of changes for us, so I'm going to be pretty flexible. I've learned that one has to be with a toddler and an infant in the house. Once we get our living situation figured out, I'm going to have other goals to add in, but it really depends on what the future brings. No use setting up goals that won’t work with our "new" life.
Hope all is well and that everyone has a great holiday season and a wonderful New Year!
Here comes 2015!
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Simple goals are the best because you feel like you can accomplish them.