I’ve Paid For This Twice Already…

Check-In With My #1 2008 Goal

On Tuesday Glblguy at Gather Little By Little checked in with his 2008 goals and then asked three other bloggers to do the same, me being one of them. He asked specifically about my #1 priority goal: No More Credit Card Debt.

So, how am I doing? Well, the good news is that I am certain that before the end of 2008, I will have eliminated all my current credit card debt. In fact, I am pretty sure that will happen before the end of February. Between the time I posted my #1 goal at the end of November and today, I have reduced my credit card debt from $3144.20 to $955.17, which is amazing progress. Over $2000 down in just two months! Looking at that really inspires me to keep going and get the job done.

The flip side to that is I didn’t accomplish much of that goal in 2008. After I wrote that post, my family had a number of positive and unexpected financial gifts or occurances fall into our lap - from my spouse’s father related to an inheritance he got, a property tax refund, and cash gifts at Christmas time. At the end of 2007, our credit card debt stood at $175.17, and I was sure that we would make short work of that.

But, as is bound to happen, what goes up must come down. We committed the vast majority of our resources to debt reduction, and then, on January 2nd, 2008, my spouse called me from the side of the road because my car, which he was driving that day, had completely stopped working. An engine replacement later, and not only had we increased our credit card debt by $800 (through a 0% for 3 months financing offer) but we had also spent about $2700 out of our pockets, all the emergency and other funds we could come up with. Just barely into 2008 and we were already farther away from our goal than when 2008 had started.

By the way Saturn, I’m still not impressed that a car with less than 88,000 miles needed a complete engine replacement, and I’ll be discussing that further in the future as you continue to deny any responsibility for your faulty part. But, that’s your perogative to not stand behind your products. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.

But back to the topic at hand, we will still accomplish our no credit card debt goal in 2008. I won’t count chickens before their hatched, so I can’t guarantee that it will happen next week or next month. But I am planning for us to be out of credit card debt in February. Since my original goal was August - I think that we are still doing pretty well for ourselves. Especially if we can hit that goal, do a victory dance, and then start aggressively building back up our emergency funds before the next little speed bump comes along.

Thanks Glblguy, for interjecting some perspective in my life by making me look back at that goal post. I needed that!

And in the spirit of giving, I’ll ask three more bloggers who set goals in that same carnival to check in with their progress (and feel free to leave a comment of your own with your goal progress!) :

• Good Fountain: How’s the eating out? What about the spending?
• BeThisWay: Budgeting, Accounting, Paying Oneself First, Oh My! How’s it going?
• Remodeling This Life: Snowflaking to an emergency fund! What’s the status?

Share This

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

• Guest Post at Rather Be Shopping and some (NCN) Network News
• Inclusion in a opinion roundup! When would you upgrade or downsize your home?
• Carnival of Financial Goals, Fifth Edition
• Are Your Goals Holding You Back?
• It doesn’t hurt to ask, even if it was your screwup