New focus

Some of you may follow me on facebook and saw my message about blowing our budget last month.  I am a numbers girl and when I sat down to balance everything out I was shocked (and saddened) to see how bad things were.

The month before we had a big financial thing happen.... we paid off our house.  It wasn't something that was easy but had been a goal for us for awhile.  Before I quit working, during that year of 'trying' to see if we could make it on one salary we put my entire paychecks (minus giving) towards our mortgage and quickly whittled it down.  So for a solid year we made probably three extra payments each month.  It made a HUGE difference.  It wasn't easy but our house is OURS now.  It's a good feeling to know that if something would happen to Nathan or our income, we are not threatened with a payment hanging over our heads to keep the house... we should always have a roof over us now.... heating it may be another question. ha

But because of that I knew coming into December that we had some 'extra' wiggle room and didn't pay as close attention as I would have before.  It really wasn't a good idea. I overspent.  I made a mistake.  But I only did it for one month, I've realized it, and now we are re-focusing for the new year.  I honestly believe that every so often making mistakes are good and teachable moments - they help you to refocus and gain new traction in meeting your goals. 

This year our goal is to pay off my student loans. To easily do that we would need to put each mortgage payment towards my loans each month.  I said to 'easily' do that.....  we also have a couple large expenses we are looking at that isn't going to make it easy.  So I'm going to being pinching pennies... planning ahead better, and really watching every dollar that comes in and goes out.  And I hope to blog soon on our budget and how that works in our house.

I hope and plan to blog more intensely on this and how we are doing each month.  What are your goals for the coming year? Do you have big ones or small ones? Having a goal (no matter how big or small) is the first step towards making a change. :)

***My dear friend who tried to contact me in a comment the other day, because my blog is so basic I wasn't notified and not sure you were notified that I responded......  email me at njbish5 @ gmail (dot) com