Goal: To be Debt free except for mortgage by the end of the year. This was established prior to our learning of the significant financial changes that are occurring so I am trusting God to provide direction in this area. Currently we are focused on meeting budget each month!

When establishing this goal last year there were two major problems. The first was that I honestly has no clue what amount that we had in debts. I was afraid to look at it. I did have to look in order to pay off the debt. The beginning number was close to 15,000.  The second problem was that I knew we would be losing the steady income. I was not sure exactly when but I knew it would happen. We did have some significant financial changes this year, the biggest of which is that Matt is no longer receiving a steady income. He has built several websites, with a couple more in the works so this has and is probably going to change more for the positive this year. So  this is not a goal we have been able to meet this year but we have made significant progress toward it. Currently we have around 7500 in outstanding debt other than our mortgage.  We have established a budget, started an emergency fund and are working steadily on playing off this remaining debt.

I am going to keep and update this goal for 2013. Our financial goal will contain 3 parts for 2013. First to pay off all outstanding debt except the mortgage by June, second to increase our Emergency fund to $2000 by December 2013 and most importantly to maintain a budget using a form of the envelope system where all events are planned for and we don’t end up “borrowing” to cover these expenses.  All envelopes will start at 0 at the beginning of the year because my first paycheck is Jan 3rd so this is an easy time to put this in motion.