Last December we set up these goals for 2012:
1. Start a Long Term Savings Account and Emergency Fund
2. Get back to a Size 8/10
3. Start a College Savings Account for Jaxon
4. Start Saving for a house in the future
5. Start saving for retirement
1. Check! We have an online savings account that we utilize and only borrow from for true emergencies. I decided to go online because it allows me to keep an eye on our money without it being readily available- it takes at least 3 business days the make a transfer so in case of emergency I have to wait a few days or if I get weak and try to tap into it usually the urge wears off to buy whatever it is we were planning on getting and we can transfer the money back or cancel the transaction. It also has a higher interest rate than a typical bank, honestly its only a few pennies more on each dollar but everything counts!
2. I started the year as a size 16. I'm back down to a 12 YAY!!! If I continue on the path I'm on I'm sure to hit my goal by the end of the year. I'm losing weight fairly slowly but this is the best way for me to keep it off in the future and not have to make any drastic lifestyle changes. To recap my weight journey I was a size 8/10 all through college. I fluctuated between a 10/12 for the next 3 years after college and by the time Jesse and I got engaged and I got my first desk job I went from fluctuating between a 10/12 to a 12/14. On our wedding day I was a 12/14. When I carried Jaxon I ended up getting high blood pressure and preclampsia which meant a drastic weight gain in the last month. I was upset with myself at first because I felt like i gained a ton of weight and let myself go but looking back on it, what was I suppose to do? I was healthy my entire pregnancy but around month 6 I became high risk and for the safety of Jaxon and my own health I literally had to stop all activity and try to be as stressfree as possible. Suffice to say, I was stuck on bedrest for over 4 weeks and literally was not suppose to move, I spent over a week in the hospital on monitors. We were basically playing a waiting game. Delivering a pre-mature baby is unsafe in many ways so the longer we could keep Jaxon inside without risking his health the better he would be in the long run. Finally they induced me because things just couldn't get any better, this was a little over a month before Jaxon was actually due. When Jaxon was 3 months old I was rushed to the hospital, two emergency room trips later and thousands of dollars in hospital bills later, I ended up getting my gallbladder removed. I was in so much pain I thought I was going to die! So for the last year and a half I've been working on regaining my health, losing weight and trying to be the best mom possible. Phew! Recapping that reminds me just how entense it all was. I am so thankful to my family for the support I received during that time, and I feel so blessed that God carried us through all of those sleepless nights.
So my point with my weight loss was to regain overall health not just to lose a bunch of weight. I wanted to feel mentally, spiritually and physically healthy again. I wanted to have a stress free life and be able to pour into the lives of those around me. But I had to get myself right first!
Now...My high blood pressure is gone (occasionally it fluctuates due to work related stress). My weight is back to the size I was when we got married, I have one final surgery next month, I'll talk more about that in another post. Mentally I feel stable, stress free, self aware and overall just blessed and thankful. God has been so good and I have such a wonderful mother and husband. I really don't have anything to complain about and so much to rejoice about!! Every day is a testimony to God's grace and His favor in my life.
3. We should have Jaxon's savings account set up with an auto deposit by November. My goal is his 2nd birthday.
4. Check!! We got accepted into a savings match program where they match our savings 1:3 up to a certain amount. We start this account next week. We took our home buying class and we identified the lender we want to use. Now, its just the waiting game. Saving and waiting that is, by the end of next year we want to have $40,000 for a down payment OR 5% for a down payment and the rest to furnish a house. This will all depend on the actual loan we get. most likely it will be an FHA loan which only requires 3.5% down but I want to put down more than that. If our interest rate will be the same whether we put down either amount then I would rather use the rest of the money for furniture and any remodeling needed. I'll talk more in detail about our house plans sometime in the future. Right now our focus is on paying off all debt. During my hectic pregnancy- mind you I was unemployed, we got behind on a lot of bills- despite our best intentions we just didn't have enough ever month to pay every bill, we racked up more credit card debt than I am comfortable with and we now have medical bills for Jaxon and I that we are still paying on. So our goal is to have nothing but student loans at the end of the year.
So far this year we have...
- Set a monthly and weekly budget and 95% of the time we stick with it.
- Paid off our car.
- Paid $1000's in old bills
- Set up recurring bills to be automatically debited from our account
I'm very pleased with our progress because we have come so far. Neither of us were good with money or taught anything about budgeting, spending or planning for the future, we are literally self taught, so for us to have our finances in order is such a compliment and testimony that anyone can accomplish any goal that they truly desire and set their mind to achieving. Now, I have people ask me all the time how to create a budget, I'm pretty knowledgeable when it comes to financial matters and I know the Sallie Mae student loan system pretty well. I found an organization who I am partner with to offer free community classes on financial management for young adults and teens. I also am thinking of looking more into ways that I can share my knowledge and experience with others in the future. For someone who hated math in school I'm pretty savvy with a budget and i hope to be able to share with others in the future so that they too can achieve their financial goals.
5. Check! Well kind of, lol. We recently found out that Jesse's job offers an awesome pension so he is covered. I can't start contributing to my 401k through work until I reach my first year anniversary which is coming in a little over a month. I have a 401k already but its pretty lame cause I haven't had the means to contribute to it for quite a while. So after reading way too many online resources and listening to too much National Public Radio, we have decided that having a Roth IRA would be beneficial for us so I plan to start that in January as well. According to retirement experts we need to each have a million dollars when we retire so we can retire comfortably around age 60/65. That is a crap load of money! So we decided to do a gradual increase in our contributions. We will start small while saving for a house and then go all in after that.
Overall in looking back over the last year I am happy with where we are right now. We have a long way to go but we aren't where we used to be. So thank God for that! Our goals for next year will be a continuation of this year so I won't be doing any major goal planning at the end of this year. I have a few other things that I want to do next year but I have that figured out as well.
I wanted to share one last thing. This time last year I was working at a food cart. It was an awesome experience and I'm thankful for the income that it did bring but it obviously wasn't what I wanted to do long term. Jesse was working at Fed Ex and wasn't happy there either. We prayed fervently for months that God would open up some doors for us to move into better jobs that would actually grow our careers and bring us some happiness and contentment. Both of us are ambitious with life but neither of use feel like our job or our career is who we are. We wanted careers where we could grow and be stable but really we wanted the money to be able to enjoy the things in life that are most important to us, like family, community, traveling and just enjoying the life that God has given us. So we both went out on a limp and applied for new jobs and within two months our lives changed drastically.
My current job is in the healthcare field, which anyone who knows me knows that it is the field I am most happy with. I went to college with the intention of landing a job in healthcare. I thought I wanted to be a doctor but over the years concluded that it wasn't for me. Now I am on the administrative side and I love it! My hubby trained as an artist and after applying for all types of art jobs and exploring those career paths he finally realized that he wanted to do art on his own terms and he wanted his career to be separate from it. I think that after focusing on something for so long you assume that its the only things that you can do. The 6 years he spent in college working towards an art job he worked labor jobs at FedEx and UPS. When he graduated, as one would expect, he immediately searched for art jobs. Well my hubby is pretty independent and anyone who meets him will soon realize that he is just not the office type. At least not now. So when I found out that Trimet was hiring I had a pretty good feeling that he would enjoy it. Nearly a year later he loves it and has already received many compliments and accolades from his riders and coworkers. He has an excellent work ethic and commitment to his career. I remember his prayers for God to shape him into a provider for his family and to make him the leader only God knows he can be. Even though we both work, Jesse is the backbone of our family and God truly uses each of our strengths in His own unique way.
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