When it comes to following through on things we wanted to do this year, my wife and I have fallen a bit short. Whether it is due to stress at work or simply the stress of life, I am not really sure. Whatever the reason, we have decided to give ourselves a financial do-over.
With that being said, we really only have a few short-term goals:
Goals for May 2012
1. Pay Down Our Credit Cards by 25% – While we really don’t have much in the way of credit card debt, we do have some. As of May 1st, we had two credit cards with outstanding balances that we could not pay off at the end of the month. Despite the fact that there are a few medical bills on the cards, I wish we would have been focused enough to NOT put charges we could not afford on the plastic.
CC#1 – $900 (Mrs. FKO’s)
CC#2 – $950 (mine)
The plan is for me to do a few side hustles to pay off my credit card, while the Mrs. will do a few photography sessions to pay down hers. If we stay focused, we should be able to knock out at least 25% of this debt in May.
2. Build Our Emergency Fund (and don’t spend it) – As we learned the hard way, a baby emergency fund of $1,000 is simply not good enough for a family of four. But to be perfectly honest with you, since our current balance is less than $300, a cool grand sounds mighty good. Fortunately, due to the aforementioned medical bills, we will be getting a nice tax return, of which, a generous portion has been ear-marked to replenish the safety net a bit.
3. Start exercising again – I lost 40 pounds from the day my son was born until his first birthday. Now I need to lose another 40 to get back to my fighting weight. The goal is to hit the treadmill a few times a week and maybe even dust off the old P90X videos.
Yes, I know that this is not a lot. It will, however, get us started back on the right path. I also plan to start blogging again more frequently since work has settled down a lot over the past few weeks.
