Financial Goals

Now that I have moved into my new house, I am ready to tackle some of my financial goals. In order to keep myself accountable, I wanted to write them all down without getting into specifics.

Dave Ramsey style goals
1. Pay off all debt other than my mortgage.
2. Fully fund an emergency fund by the end of December 2010

Retirement
3. Achieve 100% of goal for retirement savings by the time I turn 30. Basically I think it would be cool to achieve a certain number by the time I am 30. Right now I am at 80% of this goal. However, given market fluctuation can be unpredictable, I have secondary goals.
a. Open Roth IRA account
b. Max out this account for 2010. This may be ambitious but we'll see how far I get.
c. Contribute 2% more per month to 401K. Right now I am contributing the maximum employer match but I can be doing better.

Some other misc. goals I'd like to make progress on, but may end up being a little ambitious for this year - definitely possible in 2011 though!
4. Start making an extra principal payment per month before the end of 2010
5. Start contributing the equivalent of a car payment per month into a savings account by the end of 2010. My vehicle is 7 years old and shows no sign of stopping but eventually it will need to be replaced and I would like to pay for it with cash.

Now that I have these written down I am hoping to make some good progress and post an update each month.

New Patio Furniture!

So for the first time in my life, I have a patio. I am SO excited about this because I really haven't ever lived in a place where I could go outside easily. I plan on spending a lot of time out there.

Anyway - I may have a patio but I have NO patio furniture. I don't even have anything I could repurpose as patio furniture since anything that goes out there really needs to be weather proof. I don't want to spend a lot of money right now (since I am spending plenty of money on the whole buying a house situation) so I've my eyes peeled for some good deals.

I found a great deal at Habitat for Humanity's Restore.

These chairs were each priced at $2!! Can you believe that. I sat in each of them and they seem to be fully functional. They each have a small amount of rust on the bottom and all of the slats seem to be fine without tears or anything. All in all they seemed like perfect chairs! Only problem was - they were FILTHY. You can't see the dirt very well in the picture but trust me - they needed a good scrubbing.



So after an hour or so with a sponge and some soapy water, they are looking as good as new. Not bad for $4! They will definitely last this season and probably a few more depending on when I decide to get something else. Now I am on the lookout for a small glass table to put between them. With that I think my patio will be all set!

Note: Picture taken on friend's deck - not in my yard!

Diaper Deals

Today, for the first time in my life, I bought diapers. And no, it is not because I have any big announcements to make in the near future. Trust me faithful blog reader, if any announcements need to be made, you will be among the first to know.
I bought them because they were a crazy good deal and while I may not be having a baby anytime in the near future, basically everyone I know is. So good diaper deal = good baby shower gift idea!

I bought 2 Jumbo packs of Huggies size 3 diapers (I've heard size 3 is a good one to get because they stay in the small sizes for such a short time).


So anyway, Harris Teeter has these diapers on sale for $5.99 which is a fantastic deal in itself from what I understand. They are regularly priced at $10.99. PLUS I had 2 $3/1 coupons to use. So each package ended up costing $2.99 before tax.

Not too bad if you ask me! Now I have a great start to my next baby shower gift!!

Homemade Cinnamon Rolls

I tried the cinnamon roll recipe from Amysfinerthings and OH MAN are they delicious - beautiful too! The recipe made about 25 rolls which was WAY more than we needed so we both took them to work.


I made some changes to the recipe - primarily I added mostly whole wheat flour in place of all purpose flour because that is what we had on hand. They actually came out pretty good that way so I may try to keep that ratio. Instead of the recommended frosting I made a glaze with vanilla, milk, and powdered sugar. YUM!

Homemade applesauce

In my back and forth between two houses, I've had some apples that got left behind and weren't looking good enough to eat. So I decided to use them to make applesauce. It was so easy and I have to say, it tastes pretty darn good. I can't imagine I'll be going back to the store bought stuff anytime soon.

I don't have any fancy equipment so I just used a big pot. First I peeled and cut up about 7 apples. Then I boiled them covered in about 1 inch of water starting on high and then reducing heat to medium once a rapid boil was achieved.

I boiled them until they seemed mushy. I guess this was about 20 mins or so. I drained the water and mashed up the apples. Then I added cinnamon to taste and that's it! So easy!

Pantry Challenge Update

So the Pantry challenge is coming to an end and I've done pretty well with everything so far. I haven't starved and I've maintained a reasonable diversity in my diet, although a lot of this is due to the extensive eating out I've been doing (kind of anti-challenge but whatever). A few days ago I picked up carrots and chicken at Target for a total of $3.49 bringing my total for the month to $20.86.

Today I decided to break my challenge goal of sticking to only perishables because I saw some pretty decent deals at Harris Teeter and figured I'd take a lot of this down to NC with me for some easy eating.

Anyway - I spent $10.04 on the following:
2 1 lb boxes of Cheerios (note, these are HUGE and probably will hold me for a few months)
4 boxes of mac and cheese
2 loaves of arnold grains and more bread
3 broccoli florets
3 bananas

Total Savings: $15.42. WOO!

I think I am finished with my grocery shopping for the month so I feel confident giving my final numbers.


Total Challenge Grocery Spending: $30.90! Not bad for a whole month!

Impromptu Dinner Party: Challenge Style

A few friends and I decided to get together randomly last night for dinner and games. We decided to do a pot-luck type dinner and since it was basically my idea, I wanted to bring a main entree. This posed my greatest challenge thus far with completing my pantry challenge. I'm perfectly content to eat sandwiches, etc but I wanted to have something a little more substantial to share.

The other problems was that I didn't have enough time to run to the store so I reallyhad to make do with what is in my pantry and freezer - and that meant no meat.

So thanks to a recent by suggestion (you know who you are), I decided to modify a Bisquik Chicken Pot Pie recipe.

Here is what I had on hand - some broccoli (about 1/2 cup chopped), 1 can corn, 2 carrots, and lot of misc. bell peppers (green, red, yellow, and orange).

So here is my Veggie Pot Pie experiment:

The recipe calls for Cream of Chicken soup but I had only Cream of Celery or Cream of Potato - so I went with the Potato. Here is everything all mixed together. I was worried about the peppers - they just seemed a little random with the other veggies.


Here is the finished product with the topping. I have to say, it turned out really good. The whole thing was gone (6 adults) so I take that as a good sign. I was impressed by how it turned out given that I basically improvised most of it. The peppers worked and gave it a nice flavor. I will probably keep this recipe handy for a quick and easy dinner that can be made without much planning.