GOALS For 2015!

2015 Finance Goals

Happy New Year everyone!
I love a fresh start. The ending of one year and the beginning of a new year is something that I look forward to, probably because of how much i've screwed up during the year in the past.
The following are my (perhaps lofty) goals for 2015.

1.) Pay off $12k of debt this year. By using 75% of my tax refund and anticipating a at least 4% raise in March, I should be able to pay an average of $1000/month on my debt bringing my end of year debt balance down to $27k.

2.) Double my business sales from 2014 and sell $5K in 2015. Whooptiedo! I have a small clothing and accessories line which I am creating and selling when i'm not at my day job. I do craft and art fairs around holiday times and have sold consignment to stores in the past. I'd like to do even more of this in 2015, which brings me to my 3rd and last financial goal.

3.) Get out there more! Participate in 1 Spring market and 2 holiday fairs. Sell to at least 1 store and creating more online buzz.

What are YOUR goals for 2015? 

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End Of 2014 Debt Update!

I am so serious about getting out of debt.

Remember that $4,500 credit card debt that I had back in June? It's gone! Paid! What a relief. The consumer debt weight has been lifted! There is light at the end of my debt tunnel and I feel so motivated. I am that much closer to obtaining financial freedom!

So my debt spreadsheet went from $47,039 of debt across 6 different 'loans' in June to $37,772.78 across 4 loans currently. This is called hardwork and dedication, people! If I can do it, you can too.

My current debt spreadsheet now looks like this below. I will take the $300 that I was putting toward the credit card debt and put it toward Student Loan 4 since this is the smallest and I want to keep the momentum going. (I should probably be putting closer to $400/mo extra on the debt but i'm cutting myself a break here at least until I get caught up from holiday spending). Also, all of my interest rates are quite low so the order of payment won't make a huge difference here. In addition, I will be putting $500 on this loan from an apartment rental that I am doing this month, bringing the balance down to $1,207.18 by the end of the week. I should have this paid off in the next 3 months and will start on SL 2 putting $372.55 extra on that loan balance every month.

Liabilities	Amt/mo	Balance	Interest Rate
Student Loan 1	$174.65	$21,691.39	2.36% / 6.8%
Student Loan 2	$82.50	$5,797.62	5.25%
Student Loan 3	$87.92	$8,576.59	3.25%
Student Loan 4	$372.55	$1,707.18	2.36%
	$717.62	$37,772.78

You know what else will happen within the next 3 months? 

Tax refund! Oh yes, 75% of the refund will go to the debt, the other 25% will go to savings. AND March is raise time at work. Woo hoo. Chip, chip, chipping away.

Happy New Years everyone!

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2014 Midway Point - Goal Reflection

It occurred to me today, that we are just days from the midway point of 2014. Wow, already!? This year, a year that was supposed to be THE YEAR for me, has I have to admit been pretty good. I started out 2014 with a slew of goals as I always do, making sure to keep them high enough but still attainable. No one likes failure! Below are 4 of the most important goals that I made for 2014.

Credit card debt: This was the first goal that I had on my list. I feel pretty good about this one, even though my cc debt won't be paid off completely until early next year. Not only do I have my system in place for paying this down, but it's also automated, requiring no work from me. It's just happening!

Saving: Next, I had a goal to save $200/mo. It is really hard to have debt and also a 401k that gets contributed to every month, but to also be saving money in a savings account? Guess what people, i'm doing just that! And again, it's automated! $100 comes out of every paycheck and gets directly deposited into my high interest yielding savings account. Check!

Financially free plan: The 3rd goal was to put a plan in place to become financially free. This one is a little less measurable but I think I can say that i'm at least on the path to getting there. I believe that if I continue to educate myself about investing, debt reduction, passive income, and entrepreneurship, I will get there.

Career: The final thing on my list of goals is to work on my career. Whether it be getting a promotion at my day job (which did happen this year, btw) or by getting my entrepreneurial side of things up and moving. This goal needs more focus over the course of this 2nd half. The focus needs to be shifted on what I want and what will make me happy.

Overall, I think it's been a pretty successful 6 months. So congratulations and lets celebrate our midway 2014 successes and work hard on accomplishing more over the next 6 months!

How will you make your 2nd half of 2014 as sucessful as it can possibly be?

Send me a message. Did you love the post or hate it? What would you like the next topic to be? Follow me on Twitter @financegirl