Back in January, I shared with you the financial goals that my husband and I set for 2011. Each quarter, we sit down to review our progress, and I’ll share it here so you can see how it’s going. I’ve been putting off writing this review because so much has happened (see below) and so much is uncertain right now:
1) Pay off one whole debt and
2) Bigger Emergency Fund
The original plan was to snowflake all extra money each month into one debt and have it paid off by April 2011, when we would then build up our emergency fund. The very day after I shared our financial goals, we got a letter from our mortgage company telling us we needed mandatory flood insurance because FEMA put us in a high-risk zone. Don’t get me started on this–it’s taken me over 10 hours of phone calls and paperwork to get this taken care of, but in the meantime we had to spend $3,000 on flood insurance. As of yesterday, we will now get that money back, but it will probably take over a month. Basically, we haven’t moved on any of our financial goals because of this and the impending shutdown; we’re simply paying the minimum on our bills and banking the rest.
3) Contribute to a retirement plan
Yeah, right.
4) Pay down our second mortgage
Again, waiting on reimbursement from FEMA, our tax refund, and #1 and #2 being settled.
5) Two family vacations (using the “extra” 2 bi-weekly paychecks)
With the government shutdown, a loss of pay will impact us most here. We simply cannot spend the extra money if there isn’t money to spend, no matter how tight a budget we’re on (and we’ve been working hard since January). I’m really hoping that it doesn’t come to this, because seeing our families is very important to us, and it will be hard to explain to the kids.
