March/April check-in

als1982 · March 2015

I know it's a day or two early for this, but I'm so MM antsy right now that I need some inspiration!

March

1. How good were you at keeping your money goals for this month?

2. What did you do differently this month that helped?

3. What were your greatest achievements?

4. What were your biggest downfalls?

April

1. What are your goals for this month?

2. What do you plan to do differently to get to your goal?

3. What area of your budget do you want to work on this month, and how do you plan to do that?

GTKY Bonus

1. How old are you, and what are your 5, 10 and 25+ year financial and personal goals? Are you today where you thought you be personally and financially five years ago?

jessica490 · March 2015

March

1. How good were you at keeping your money goals for this month?

Overall not bad, we had some extra vet bills due to my dog hurting his back, and we had a last minute $420 plumber bill to fix our leaky sink before the condo went on the market. Oh and of course, we owed $800 or so to the federal gov for taxes yuck!

2. What did you do differently this month that helped?

We are still being cautious in spending as we are still in condo paydown/house DP save mode.

3. What were your greatest achievements?

Eh, nothing that great. We got $276 for our state tax

4. What were your biggest downfalls?

The vet bills, plumber and federal tax payback

April

1. What are your goals for this month?

To sell this condo!!

To keep saving for our house DP

To have no unexpected bills

2. What do you plan to do differently to get to your goal?

Just keep saving and keep working part-time

3. What area of your budget do you want to work on this month, and how do you plan to do that?

Just less spending overall on things we don't need, or eating out too much

GTKY Bonus

1. How old are you, and what are your 5, 10 and 25+ year financial and personal goals? Are you today where you thought you be personally and financially five years ago?

I am 32.

5 year- To be settled in our possibly forever home with ourselves and dog staying healthy. We want to have our 401K's growing as well as our Roth IRA's that we will be opening soon. And to keep on traveling to all different places!

10-25+ We hope to maintain all of the above so that way we can retire down south maybe early!

I definitely surprised myself with where we are today financially! Before the age of 30 I was a good saver but never had thought of the future. After turning 30 and having a mini mid-life crisis, I really started getting on board. This website has also helped me tremendously and we are definitely on the right path! I just want to be like my parents and live the good life like they are right now. I just want to be child-free, travel, have fun and save $$. I thought I would be making more $ at this point and that makes me a little nervous but overall we are doing well for ourselves.

vlagrl29 · March 2015

I haven't done my receipt tally yet for March so I will get back to this. I do know that April won't be the best because we are going to St. Lucia although it has been paid for.

GTKY Bonus - I'm 34 DH 39 and we are where I thought we would be from 5 years ago. We have a savings and contrib to savings and retirement where 5 years ago we didn't.

5 years from now - baby #2 will have been added and DH's photog studio would have been built. Cash flow will be more because DH will have 3 renters in his studio and I will hopefully have a couple musician renters for the music studio portion. Along with contributing to savings and IRA's I would love for us to actually have more money to contribute to home remodeling. It's at a sad 1k right now.

10-25 years I have a hard time thinking that far ahead but I'm sure we may have moved to a new house by them and keep on keeping on with our financial goals

formerlyGDaisy09 · March 2015

I haven't totalled everything up, so this is just an estimate based on last week.

March

1. How good were you at keeping your money goals for this month?

Fairly good, we went a little spendy at the garden store, but we'll cash flow and enjoy an early arrival of some crops thanks to some spending, so hopefully some grocery savings are just down the road.

2. What did you do differently this month that helped?

we had several serious conversations about short-term and long-term goals, that helped keep us on track. our pending work on the basement and windows were great motivation.

3. What were your greatest achievements?

we got more than $2K back from our 2014 taxes (mainly due to my grad school expenses the first half of the year, we're on track for a minimal return for 2015)

4. What were your biggest downfalls?

I'm not sure it's a downfall, but I'd been in denial about the windows needing replacing, plus we replaced the roof last year, so we're going to finance some of our upcoming work. again, I'm not sure if it's a downfall. in reality it will work within our budget, we do have a good amount of cash to start with (though there will be some closing costs involved). we did pay for the roof fully in cash last year and haven't taken on any new debt since we bought my car in 2013, so I think we're being smart about it, as much as it always feels a little bitter to decide to finance things. now that there's a baby in the picture I think it makes sense to keep a lot of what we do have saved liquid, since it sounds like the financing is not going to impact our monthly budget significantly. (an extra $25/month...and I anticipate we'll see some electric and heating savings)

April

1. What are your goals for this month?

stay on track with where we've been. I'm starting to make several of the various shower and wedding git purchases we'll need to make over the next 6 months to hopefully spread out the costs of those weddings. some of our hotel and transportation costs (and potentially dress rental for me) will come out of our earmarked vacation fund.

2. What do you plan to do differently to get to your goal?

nothing...just keep swimming

3. What area of your budget do you want to work on this month, and how do you plan to do that?

I am going to do a bit more work on the grocery/household line items as we figur out the dog's new diet more.

GTKY Bonus

1. How old are you, and what are your 5, 10 and 25+ year financial and personal goals? Are you today where you thought you be personally and financially five years ago?

27, 5 years ago I most definitely did not picture myself as a homeowner with a baby on the way (the more I write it the more it feels real). retrospectively, I'm very proud of where H and I are, we're credit card debt free and working on our collective pile of student loans and we're both contributing to retirement plans. We have a workable budget with breathing room, we're on the same page about goals. we're not able to do everything we want, but we get darn close.

5 years from now our goal is to be free from our student loans, we're not debt avers, so I expect we'll always have a car loan floating around (once my car is paid off it's H's turn to trade in for something newer), we'd much rather have newer cars with less maintanence and a reasonable car payment.

10 years I'd like to be in our forever home, the changes we're making to this one will make it suit our forseeable needs for the next 6-8 years, but eventually it would be nice to have a bit more space. (honestly if our yard were bigger I'd see expanding on this house and staying another 15-20 years).

25 years I'd like to be in a place where we feel comfrotable with our retirement savings and can pay or help pay for our children's educations.

TravelJunkie1234 · March 2015

March

1. How good were you at keeping your money goals for this month? Well, I'm a newbie to this so I didn't have a specific goal other than trying to pay down debt. It seems like things kept coming up this month so we didn't pay off as much as I had hoped.

2. What did you do differently this month that helped? Nothing, lol. Really need to get my butt in gear

3. What were your greatest achievements? Convincing DH to go with the least expensive tree removal company...he was willing to pay an extra $1,000!

4. What were your biggest downfalls? Random house repairs

April

1. What are your goals for this month? Get our garden going again so that we can cut our produce bills, and keep our spending in check while we are on vacation.

2. What do you plan to do differently to get to your goal? Doing a bit of freelance work to make extra cash for spending in Jamaica and to spend on making my garden workable.

3. What area of your budget do you want to work on this month, and how do you plan to do that? I really want to start tracking my spending to see where all my money disappears to. These last few months I feel like it just keeps going out and I don't know to where.

GTKY Bonus

1.
How old are you, and what are your 5, 10 and 25+ year financial and
personal goals? Are you today where you thought you be personally and
financially five years ago?
I'm 26. 5 year goal is to be completely out of debt, purchase a bigger house with several acres of land and to double what I'm putting into retirement/savings so that when we start a family either DH or myself can stay home.

10-25 years I haven't given much thought. We'd like to be able to continue to travel and to have enough of a cushion to help my mom out as she has no retirement/savings and we've come to realize she'll need our assistance in the future.

Well, 5 years ago I was a recent (2009) college grad who was ready to go to law school. I anticipated lots of student loans but also having a higher paycheck than what I currently make (really I was lucky I found a job right out of college, but it didn't pay much. I had hoped that 5 years post college I'd have received more than one pay raise!). Anyway, law school didn't happen, as DH (then FI) got a job offer across the country so instead of going into more SL debt we moved and I ended up working from home and not going back to school.

It's probably for the best because I have several friends that graduated Law School at the same time I would have and they have really struggled. We also seem to be doing better financially than a lot of our friends, so being not so financially squeezed is a good feeling. I still think about the what-ifs though, but can't seem to reconcile the idea of taking out a bunch of SLs to go back to school for 3 years when that's the same time-frame that we want to start a family (and where one of us stays home with the kids). Gah--I don't like having to make these grown-up decisions!

Edited because I apparently can't spell today...

hoffse · March 2015

March

1. How good were you at keeping your money goals for this month?

We were pretty good. We stayed under budget for everything except our gas bill (still figuring out utilities in the new house since we've lived here less than a year).

2. What did you do differently this month that helped?

We really buckled down, and I sent H weekly reports of how much we had left in our various (non-fixed) categories.

3. What were your greatest achievements?

I figured out how to get to Amsterdam and Brussels next April without paying for flights. And I worked the credit card sign-up bonuses to do it. Finished the last bit I needed to do for points yesterday, and they should be deposited into our account in the next few weeks. In my 2015 budget projection I had us paying out of pockets for these flights, so it's going to save us a few grand at the end of the year.

4. What were your biggest downfalls?

H assumed his Rotaract dues would be reimbursed by his job, and they declined it. So we had to go out of pocket for them, and they are kind of pricey. Believe me... we had a conversation about requesting reimbursement before committing after this happened...

April

1. What are your goals for this month?

To end the month with money leftover. We've been paying back our savings from our back room remodel the last 3 months, and we've finally got our savings back up to a place where I'm comfortable. It will be nice to finally send extra money to our "slush" fund again and not have it be committed to something.

2. What do you plan to do differently to get to your goal?

Nothing different, really.

3. What area of your budget do you want to work on this month, and how do you plan to do that?

Probably our slush spending. I increased it a bit because we really need to be able to cash flow more than we do. One of my goals is actually to loosen the stranglehold I have on that budget category, because it stresses both of us out to have so little allocated there.

GTKY Bonus

1. How old are you, and what are your 5, 10 and 25+ year financial and personal goals? Are you today where you thought you be personally and financially five years ago?

I'm 28. H is 27.

5 years ago: I was finishing my first year of law school and H was still "finding himself." I definitely did not think we would be in the position we are in today. Some of the things that were a pipe dream back then (house, travel, etc.) have become reality.

5 years from now: Biggest change I can think of will be kids (hopefully)

10-25 years from now: Probably new house, possibly vacation house (if H gets his way - ha!), student loans will be done, and we'll be in the process of wealth building.

lifeonthehill · March 2015

March

1. How good were you at keeping your money goals for this month? We were shooting low since I was out of work but we did really well.

2. What did you do differently this month that helped? I wasn't working but we kept things cheap and only ate out 3 times this month.

3. What were your greatest achievements? We but away the first $1k towards my fall semester!

4. What were your biggest downfalls? We suck at groceries. It is hard to be in a good habit when we are only feeding ourselves 4 months of the year.

April

1. What are your goals for this month? Save $2.5k towards college and the car fund.

2. What do you plan to do differently to get to your goal? We wont have to grocery shop so we will keep our food bill to a minimum. H is doing a dry month with his buddies so that will save $30+

3. What area of your budget do you want to work on this month, and how do you plan to do that? None. Now that I am back at work I am happy with what we are doing.

GTKY Bonus

1. How old are you, and what are your 5, 10 and 25+ year financial and personal goals? Are you today where you thought you be personally and financially five years ago? I am 23 and H is 26. I would have never guessed I would be able to be so well off. I was only 18 and the world was terrifying!

5 year plan is to have a baby new car, be a SAHM, be in a ground floor apartment, and be 75% done with my bachelors degree.

10 year plan includes be in a house instead of a dorm building, H be working on a masters, my degree completed and back to working full time.

25 year plan is to have enough saved to be thinking about building a small home for ourselves somewhere.

abrewer5 · March 2015

March

1. How good were you at keeping your money goals for this month? I did ok.

2. What did you do differently this month that helped? I stopped carrying my credit card halfway thru the month. I've said before in other threads that I spend more when I have a CC so that really helped curb my spending.

3. What were your greatest achievements? Not MM, H & I finally got our granite countertops and backsplash for our kitchen. We've been wanting it for 2 years and got a good deal. I also put an extra $465 towards my car.

4. What were your biggest downfalls? Eating out too much like usual.

April
1. What are your goals for this month? Eat out less and pay off my car 16 April!! Can't wait!

2. What do you plan to do differently to get to your goal? Meal plan and do better grocery shopping. My car payoff is already budgeted for so that should go as planned.

3. What area of your budget do you want to work on this month, and how do you plan to do that? This month I'm focusing solely on paying off my car. That is my big financial goal.

GTKY Bonus

1. How old are you, and what are your 5, 10 and 25+ year financial and personal goals? Are you today where you thought you be personally and financially five years ago?

I'm 24, I'll be 25 in August. In 5 years I'd like to take a trip to Hawaii for H & I's anniversary. I'd like to get my student loans paid off (hopefully by April 2016). And I'd like to save $70K in the next 5-7 years to build a house.

In 25 years I'd like my forever home paid off as part of my retirement plan, and hopefully be working to buy a house in FL to retire to in the winter.

Edited to correct formatting. It was all crazy.

cbee817 · March 2015

March

1. How good were you at keeping your money goals for this month? We did good- tax returns went to our vacation fund (almost $2K), we're on track with savings for the year as well.

2. What did you do differently this month that helped? Not much different- stayed on budget.

3. What were your greatest achievements? Mortgage is officially below $100,000, my 401K is officially over $100,000, and general savings ($28K), CD ($30K), Roth IRA ($22K), vacation savings ($7K), and 529 plans ($11K) are just shy of $100,000.

4. What were your biggest downfalls? N/A

April

1. What are your goals for this month? Continue to save and move some $ to our Roths and 529 plans, add 1% to 401K contributions once my raise comes in, add $500 bonus from work to vacation savings (brings it up to $7,500).

2. What do you plan to do differently to get to your goal? Keep with budget- usual stuff.

3. What area of your budget do you want to work on this month, and how do you plan to do that? Nothing really- we only have 3 more full time day care payments (April, May, June) for 2 kids.. that's pretty exciting. July and August, they only go 2 days a week since DH is home. We'll probably get DH a new car in September once DD#1 starts kindergarten. We'll use his as a trade in and probably take out a 3 year loan on the balance since I think we're going brand new for the first time.

GTKY Bonus

1. How old are you, and what are your 5, 10 and 25+ year financial and personal goals? Are you today where you thought you be personally and financially five years ago?

I'm 33, DH is 32. In 5 years, I hope that we both have newer cars, the girls have $30,000 each in their 529 plans, we've gone on 2-3 big trips with the girls, and that the house is almost paid off. 10 years, the house will be paid off no matter what (15 year mortgage refinanced in 2010), retirement savings are on track, the girls' 529 plans are all set, going on lots of vacations with the family. 25+ years- retired with DH, traveling, and hopefully a grandma (weird to think about!).

5 years ago, I was pregnant with DD#1- we were gutting our kitchen and getting ready for her arrival. Since then, we added DD#2 and have stayed on track with our goals despite DH being laid off by his school district pretty much every summer and rehired every fall. My job is pretty stable and I've gotten good raises/promotions over the years and good health insurance that I carry for the four of us. Hopefully things continue this way for our family.

noffgurl · March 2015

als1982 said:

March

1. How good were you at keeping your money goals for this month? We did much better than I thought we would.

2. What did you do differently this month that helped? Challenging every purchase.

3. What were your greatest achievements? Nothing too big yet, but should have all the collections debt paid off next month or the month after.

4. What were your biggest downfalls? Nothing this month.

April

1. What are your goals for this month? To pay for my summer semester.

2. What do you plan to do differently to get to your goal? Nothing really, except still really stopping before each purchase.

3. What area of your budget do you want to work on this month, and how do you plan to do that? Spending

GTKY Bonus

1. How old are you, and what are your 5, 10 and 25+ year financial and personal goals? Are you today where you thought you be personally and financially five years ago?
I am 24, DH is 27.
In five years I would like to have my niece/nephews 529's at $5,000 each. A small goal that won't even come close to paying for school completely, but it should help them get started at least. I would also like to be graduated with a bachelor's at that point.
In ten years I would like to have a different home and would be nice to have a rental or two, but we will see.
In twenty-five years, I really don't know except that we would both like to do more traveling. My hope is to have a flexible job where I can take care of the major bills enabling H to take care of rentals, so we can travel wherever whenever.
Five years ago. Oh, boy. DH and I had just moved down to Texas three months earlier. We had $250 to our name to make the trip from Utah to Texas. Best thing we ever did! We spent quite awhile on $80 a week that my mom would loan us while DH was trying to get on with her company. I then landed a couple of minimum wage jobs over the next couple of years, while he tried to get anything that would come his way. I remember about 4 years ago when we finally made a combined income of a little over $1,000. We celebrated, lol.

Xstatic3333 · March 2015

This is a tough one to write. I'm pretty embarrassed, but will hold myself accountable.

1. We were not good. We had lifestyle creep, borrowing against ourselves with CCs, and frivolous purchases. We had a break down, to the point that one of these months we'll need to pull from savings to avoid CC interest. I've also been surprisingly sloppy with work receipts.

2. We did start making a more realistic grocery budget and writing lists, which was a good step.

3. No progress towards goals.

4. Going out with friends, H buying a DS, my supposedly-free dive instructor course has had lots of hidden fees, recovering from last month's vet bills.

April

1. Cash flow the rest of the dive instructor course, be putting 10% into my Roth by May.

2. After next pay day I'm going to stop carrying my CC. H seems better able to handle one.

3. Realistic budgeting, declining social events.

I'm 30, H is 36. My 5-year goal is to double my current retirement savings, giving me one year of my salary, at least, by 35. 10 year goal is SLs paid off. 25 year goal is house paid off and college for any kids.

AprilZ81 · March 2015

March

1. How good were you at keeping your money goals for this month? We were EXCELLENT at staying on budget especially considering we were living on DH's income as practice for me being out of work. We didn't go over budget in any category and for the most part we didn't "suffer" but the biggest cuts were to savings so it will be more painful down the road. We both had saved a lot of our "fun money" recently so the huge cut to that envelope wasn't too painful this month, but I'm sure that will change if I remain unemployed for awhile.

2. What did you do differently this month that helped? We cut back on eating out and cut down on unnecessary purchases.

3. What were your greatest achievements? n/a

4. What were your biggest downfalls? I spent a good chunk of my saved up fun money eating out while my Dad was in ICU. I had to go down to my hometown and a lot of eating on the run and getting groceries for their house since they had just gotten back from vacation.

April

1. What are your goals for this month? Find a job! In the absence of a job I'm working on inexpensive home improvement projects (removing wallpaper, painting, spring flowers, etc.) and putting my unemployment benefits into savings.

2. What do you plan to do differently to get to your goal? n/a

3. What area of your budget do you want to work on this month, and how do you plan to do that? I'm still working on getting our grocery budget down. I've been shopping at Aldi recently and saving a ton of money. Now that I'm not working making a second grocery stop isn't inconvenient so I go there first to get as much on my list as possible before going to a traditional grocery store to get the rest of what I need.

GTKY Bonus

1. How old are you, and what are your 5, 10 and 25+ year financial and personal goals? Are you today where you thought you be personally and financially five years ago?

I am 34 and DH is 37 we are both savers although DH is a bigger saver than I am. Five years ago I was living in another state and I hadn't met DH yet so no, I never imagined where I am not, both personally and financially. Personally I wasn't sure I would ever get married. Financially I never thought I would be able to live in a house as large and nice as what we are in now. We've remodeled the kitchen and done a lot of smaller projects to make it pretty and more our taste. The bonus is that we can afford it even in DH's income alone (although it isn't optimal for sure).

We really don't have financial goals for the next 5, 10 or 15 years. We would like me to be able to stay home when we have kids, but realistically I think DH needs to be making a little more money for that to be practical. We can't afford any extra bills (like a car payment) on DH's salary as it is right now.

als1982 · March 2015

Everyone is so inspiring!!

March

1. How good were you at keeping your money goals for this month? Not too bad. We had company one weekend that meant we overspent on entertainment that pay period, but this week we've being doing a fridge/pantry clean-out to offset that overage.

2. What did you do differently this month that helped? Just kept on track. We also hit the minimum spend for the sign-up bonus on a new credit card. From that, we've netted an extra $650 so far. It's looking like on average, that will equate to an extra $50-$100 per month.

3. What were your greatest achievements? Our retirement accounts now total over $50,000 and our net worth hit $25,000.

4. What were your biggest downfalls? I did spend a little too much mad money, and now I'm in the hole $100 until next month.

April

1. What are your goals for this month? Keep killing my student loan. We're still on track to have it gone by May...

2. What do you plan to do differently to get to your goal? I've been obsessively reading and following Mr. Money Mustache and associated forums (I think I have @Xstatic3333 to thank for that!)

3. What area of your budget do you want to work on this month, and how do you plan to do that? I've been thinking about posting our budget here to see if anyone has suggestions. I'd love to make some cuts, but we're pretty bare bones with the exception of travel, retirement and mad money, which I don't know if I can bare to cut!

GTKY Bonus

1. How old are you, and what are your 5, 10 and 25+ year financial and personal goals? Are you today where you thought you be personally and financially five years ago?

We are 32 and 33. Five years ago, I was in the same house and at the same employer. I'm like @AprilZ81 and wasn't sure if I was ever going to get married, and had set my sights on adoption as my route to family. But H came along and we've both been blessed with raises and promotions since getting married in 2013.

Our future goals are to have both our student loans paid off in the next two years (mine are almost there, but H has about $58,000 left). Then by five, we'd like to be in a bigger house, but hope to have enough equity in this one and savings to put down so that the payment is around the same. At ten, I'd love for that mortgage to also be gone and be saving for any kids' college. Although that's not something we want to fully fund. Then at 25, I definitely hope to be retired and traveling the world.

dragonstarjk · April 2015

March

1. How good were you at keeping your money goals for this month? Not too bad. My raise kicked in at work this month so I feel like that really helped with funding our savings accounts and not feeling like the budget was quite as tight.

2. What did you do differently this month that helped? Didn't do anything differently this month, other than I didn't earmark my raise so it would just give us a little more wiggle room.

3. What were your greatest achievements? My 401K surpassed the $20K mark and I was so excited!

4. What were your biggest downfalls? Our current front porch problem is by far the hardest thing to take. I think because we already have the financing plan in place and we've been socking away everything extra in preparation for this project; it was just devastating to hear that we might not be able to do it.

April

1. What are your goals for this month? Beef up our vacation savings because we are going on a road trip in June.

2. What do you plan to do differently to get to your goal? We'll just cut back on eating out and try to spend less on groceries--trying to be a little more frugal as we get ready for vacation in a couple of months.

3. What area of your budget do you want to work on this month, and how do you plan to do that? See above.

GTKY Bonus

1. How old are you, and what are your 5, 10 and 25+ year financial and personal goals? Are you today where you thought you be personally and financially five years ago?

I am 32 and H is 47.

5 year goal--we want to do a British Isles cruise for our 10th anniversary in 2019.

10 year goal--I really want to be a bank officer by then, and I'd hope to be able to max out my Roth IRA with the increased earnings. I'd also like to be looking into purchasing rental property.

25+ year goal--I want to be able to retire early so I can be retired with my husband. The age difference makes it a little bit of a challenge. We'd like to purchase some rental properties to subsidize our retirement. We are also seriously considering moving to a warmer climate for retirement, likely central California.

kaso17 · April 2015

March

1. How good were you at keeping your money goals for this month?

Actually surprisingly better than we did for the month of Feb. And this was with a trip to Chicago for a night. We did go over budget slightly but both of our incomes are variable so I always under estimate what we will get. We still ended up putting $700 into our E fund.

2. What did you do differently this month that helped?

Started doing grocery shopping at Aldi for one. Oh my gosh, is that a nation wide thing? If so, this place is great. We save so much by shopping here. Other than that we just really tried to not buy anything outside of basic needs (with the occasional run for beer/wine)

3. What were your greatest achievements?

Upped the amount I'm contributing to my 403b. Sat down and discussed our goals/timeline in great detail.

4. What were your biggest downfalls?

Not grocery shopping this past week. It meant that we didn't have stuff to make for a couple lunches so we both just bought something while we were out. Ugh. Also being a little lax with the budget the last half of the month.

April

1. What are your goals for this month?

Get rid of cable. Finish our payments on my Mac. Stay within budget!

2. What do you plan to do differently to get to your goal?

I don't know... I think just really buckle down and stick to the budget. And grocery shop every week- that really saves us.

3. What area of your budget do you want to work on this month, and how do you plan to do that?

Somehow we always over spend in our food category... what can I say, we like to eat! I also need to make some calls about our home insurance and see if we can get a better rate. Other than that, we always can tweak things in the budget, I don't know if we will ever have a perfect one!

GTKY Bonus

1. How old are you, and what are your 5, 10 and 25+ year financial and personal goals? Are you today where you thought you would be personally and financially five years ago?

I am 27 and my husband is 30.

5 year goal: To be out of debt, have at least 6 months E fund saved up, have a kid or two, and be saving for college for them, and definitely up the ante on retirement as well as throwing money at our mortgage. My husbands goal would be to be in a new career.

10 and 25 year goal? I honestly don't know. To have the house paid off hopefully!!

5 years ago I thought it was normal for people to have debt. I never thought twice about it. My husband and I are so much further along now than we ever thought we'd be, and our relationship is better for it!

Love reading everyones posts and goals!

JoanE2012 · April 2015

March

1. How good were you at keeping your money goals for this month? We did ok. DH and I each had an unexpected major car repair, so we didn't get to save as much as we would have liked.

2. What did you do differently this month that helped? Nothing.

3. What were your greatest achievements? Got a 5 figure refund (I know, I know, we should be aiming for zero, but we like it), a 5 figure bonus at work and a raise. That really helped pump up our house/emergency fund.

4. What were your biggest downfalls? Unexpected car repairs for both DH and I.

April

1. What are your goals for this month? Save as much as we can....we have a very large outflow this month for a new deck.

2. What do you plan to do differently to get to your goal? Less frivolous spending.

3. What area of your budget do you want to work on this month, and how do you plan to do that? Miscellaneous spending. Limit eating out. Hold off on "wishlist" items. Cut some coupons for grocery shopping.

GTKY Bonus

1. How old are you, and what are your 5, 10 and 25+ year financial and personal goals? Are you today where you thought you be personally and financially five years ago?

I'm 36 (as is DH). Our overall goal is to continue saving money with the hopes of retiring by 60 or so. Pay off the mortgage at least 10 years early. Continue traveling the world. Spoil our nieces and nephews (no kids for us).

Mustard76 · April 2015

March

1. How good were you at keeping your money goals for this month?
We did fairly well. We didn't really budget properly for our increase in insurance, so we went one full pay period without contributing to any savings goals, but other than that one mishap, we were in good shape.

2. What did you do differently this month that helped?

We didn't really do much differently this month than other months. We've done better than we expected moving back to the Midwest. We thought we'd be spending more since we're so much closer to our families and friends, but we've kept ourselves in check.

3. What were your greatest achievements?

Staying on track has been our greatest achievement. Both of our annual increases took effect this month, so that has made things a little easier.

4. What were your biggest downfalls?

Not budgeting properly for our increase in insurance. We know it goes with every move we make, but we didn't plan accordingly.

April

1. What are your goals for this month?
Keep up our current rate of savings and current rate of SL payoff. I increased our vacation fund transfer by $25 a month, nothing crazy.

2. What do you plan to do differently to get to your goal?
We're pretty much on track. MIL is coming this weekend, so that may throw a small wrench in our spending this weekend. But we're ready for it.

3. What area of your budget do you want to work on this month, and how do you plan to do that?
I would love to amp up my SL payoff. I so desperately want it gone. I know it doesn't make the most sense; it's a small amount and the rate is low. But it's a mental thing for me. When I first graduated, I never thought it was going to go away. And now I'm so close, I just want to be done with it.

GTKY Bonus

1.
How old are you, and what are your 5, 10 and 25+ year financial and
personal goals? Are you today where you thought you be personally and
financially five years ago?
I am 31, H will be 34 next month. In 5 years, we want to have made our final move across state lines, and be in our forever home. I would like to make a move in my career within the next 5 years, but at this point, I'm undecided on what that is. Nothing specific at the 10 year mark, just general travel goals and other things on the "bucket list" that aren't specific to any timeline. In 25, we would like to be retired. Or rather, H would like to retire, and I would like to travel more than we get to now.

kmurphy2131 · April 2015

March

1. How good were you at keeping your money goals for this month?

We kept within our goals. It was a challenging month because we moved, so there were a lot of really high expenses (movers etc) but otherwise we stayed within where we should.

2. What did you do differently this month that helped?

Not really anything. We are still on the YNAB train and I love it for staying on top of things.

3. What were your greatest achievements?

Continuing to budget and count everything even though I hated to look at the numbers. Historically I skipped budgets on months where things like moving happened because I didn't want to deal with facing it. It is what it is, we did the best that we could, and we accounted for every penny. This isn't an achievement, but H got a really big check paying him out for money that had been withheld by his old job (they held it to pay him in the summer when he was off) so that helped a bit.

4. What were your biggest downfalls?

Well, we weren't able to save any money (actually had to borrow some from savings) this month due to the moving costs. We do have some refunds for over paid utilities, a tax return, and an old security deposit coming towards us which should help us repay our savings a bit.

April

1. What are your goals for this month?

Try to somewhat return to a sense of normalcy and get a better hold of our new budget (new income, new rent, new utilities). We are going on vacation this month but we should be able to cashflow it based on some money I set aside in March and plan to set aside in April. In addition, I want to put 1400-1500 back into our e-fund at a minimum (I hate that we touched it to move and can't stand not being at the top).

2. What do you plan to do differently to get to your goal?

Nothing different, just continue to stay on top of things.

3. What area of your budget do you want to work on this month, and how do you plan to do that?

I went over in groceries in March so I want to make sure I stay in budget in April. I'm not too worried about it though, I am actually net positive in the grocery budget for february and march combined. I think it was really just a factor of eating everything out of the freezer before we moved (less $ spent in february) and then restocking after we moved (more $ in march). But it's an area I have worked so hard to get down, I want to keep it that way.

GTKY Bonus

1. How old are you, and what are your 5, 10 and 25+ year financial and personal goals? Are you today where you thought you be personally and financially five years ago?

I am 27, H is 28. 5 years from now we want to feel pretty settled as to where we want to live, and have the money to purchase a house if we want to (I don't want to right now, even if we had the money so I am not sure how I will in 5 years. I realize I am the opposite of everyone here) We will be starting to plan for, or maybe already have a child by then. I have no idea in 10 and 25 years. I guess to have my student loans paid off in 10 years. And be ready for retirement $$ wise in 25 years. I don't know where I expected I would be now, 5 years ago. H and I were 6 weeks away from even meeting at that time, and I was still in grad school so I had no idea what would happen in life.

simplyelise · April 2015

March

1. How good were you at keeping your money goals for this month?

Good! H didn't start his new job until the 15th and things got tight at the end of the month, but we stayed on budget for everything.

2. What did you do differently this month that helped?

Same old same old. We just did our zero-balance budget and stuck to it or had an impromptu discussion to move the budget around so we stayed under.

3. What were your greatest achievements?

Finally got the whole life cashed out (term in place already) and put it all towards SLs.

4. What were your biggest downfalls?

We each spent our blow money early, so the last week of the month was ROUGH. We also should have built in extra money because we had to bring dinner for church small group (20 people), so grocery budget was tight too.

April

1. What are your goals for this month?

Putting about 2400 towards SL debt and 100 in sinking fund for car replacement.

2. What do you plan to do differently to get to your goal?

Pretty much the same. But we did start using DR's new online budgeting tool (everydollar.com) to track our budget and so far it's great.

3. What area of your budget do you want to work on this month, and how do you plan to do that?

We built in a bit more for date night because we have a double date scheduled but still want to have our own date time.

GTKY Bonus

1. How old are you, and what are your 5, 10 and 25+ year financial and personal goals? Are you today where you thought you be personally and financially five years ago?

25, H is 27.

FINANCIALLY: In 5 years, we'll have SLs paid, 6 months expenses saved, 20% down on house, and saving 15% toward retirement. 10/25 years, just saving for kid's college, paying off house, and loading up retirement.

PERSONALLY: Hopefully starting the family within 5 years and growing in our careers.

FINANCIALLY: I am not in the career where I thought I'd be and I'm now working on SLs of H's when I didn't have any of my own.

PERSONALLY: I didn't really think I'd be married, so that's been a huge change!

smbenevides1989 · April 2015

March

1. How good were you at keeping your money goals for this month?

There were a few slips, but we did fairly decent compared to last year. We also got our tax return which helped us pay down debt.

2. What did you do differently this month that helped?

Tried to avoid going out. And the taxes that came in helped.

3. What were your greatest achievements?

Not eating out as much.

4. What were your biggest downfalls?

Spending more than we should have in different categories.

April

1. What are your goals for this month?

Continue saving in various accounts.

2. What do you plan to do differently to get to your goal?

Continue keeping up with our current goals and try to avoid going out more than planned.

3. What area of your budget do you want to work on this month, and how do you plan to do that?

I want to work on paying down our last credit card, and we will be able to do that with DH's overtime.

GTKY Bonus

1. How old are you, and what are your 5, 10 and 25+ year financial and personal goals? Are you today where you thought you be personally and financially five years ago?

-5 years ago: Definitely not where I was expecting to be. I was either hoping to be in a house, but it wasn't a definite answer as to where I was financially.

5 years from now: I want to be debt free except for my car and be in our forever home.

10-25 years from now: We just want to keep on chugging along in our daily lives. I don't plan on leaving our home, or adding anyone more than another puppy, so I will just be saving into various savings accounts and retirement accounts.

Wulfgar · April 2015

March

1. How good were you at keeping your money goals for this month? Not the best, we had some home repairs and trees cut down. We also have an issue with not budgeting enough for eating out roughly once a week that we end up doing.

2. What did you do differently this month that helped? Did a pretty lousy job of staying on task this past month. Part of this is that I know that we will be having another loan payment in May, after we get our roof and siding complete.

3. What were your greatest achievements? Not going into credit card debt.

4. What were your biggest downfalls? Over spending on groceries and eating out.

April

1. What are your goals for this month? Continue to work on my credit card debt, will be adding necessary maintenance on my car to the credit card that will not help.

2. What do you plan to do differently to get to your goal? It helps that MW got a $1.00 an hour raise starting April 1st and my company's annual COLA kicks in at the same time.

3. What area of your budget do you want to work on this month, and how do you plan to do that? Need to sit down and go over our budget again, we only look at it every couple of months and mainly track major out goes.

GTKY Bonus

1.
How old are you, and what are your 5, 10 and 25+ year financial and
personal goals? Are you today where you thought you be personally and
financially five years ago?

MW: 32, Me: 43

-5: I am where I was hoping to be fiscally. I was in a below degree job with the hourly rate that goes with it. Personally, MW and I both compromised. I got a ring and she got two little ones.

5: Hopefully continue to move up in my company towards being a senior engineer. Fiscally, have MW's student loans paid off, be down to hopefully one car payment, have most of our signature loans paid off.

10: Hopefully have to very active children that are not as socially awkward as MW and I are. Fiscally, be mainly debt free expect maybe a car payment. I drove way too many el cheapo cars with my ex that didn't last even a year to want to go back to that.

25: Personally and fiscally be either retired or partially retired and maybe first grand kid on the way. I doubt that I will be like my dad who's hobby is his work. I would like to be able to travel more.

MissChanandlerBong · April 2015

als1982 said:
I know it's a day or two early for this, but I'm so MM antsy right now that I need some inspiration!

March

1. How good were you at keeping your money goals for this month?
We did pretty well overall. Some overages but not too bad.

2. What did you do differently this month that helped?
Getting H more involved in the finances. He has never wanted to be, and I've been fine doing it myself, but I think it's important for him to know what's going on, and I like being able to bounce ideas off him and set goals together.
3. What were your greatest achievements?
We paid off $7500 in debt in March. Mostly this was due to H selling some stocks and switching jobs, so they paid out his accrued/unused PTO. That is also after cash-flowing a $2K tax bill.
4. What were your biggest downfalls?
Target. That place is my kryptonite. But seriously, I think we still need to get a better mindset about feeling like we "earned" or "deserve" some splurges because of all the progress we've been making and how hard we've been working. We definitely have some fun money in the budget, we just need to be careful not to go overboard.

April

1. What are your goals for this month?
Pay down $3K in debt, and not go overboard on DD2's 1st birthday
2. What do you plan to do differently to get to your goal?
Stop overspending trying to create pinterest parties that no one cares about but me. Just keep it simple and focus on the important stuff - family, friends, and fun.
3. What area of your budget do you want to work on this month, and how do you plan to do that?
The Target/toiletries line item. Staying away from any store without a specific list in mind.
GTKY Bonus

1. How old are you, and what are your 5, 10 and 25+ year financial and personal goals? Are you today where you thought you be personally and financially five years ago?
I am 31. 5 years from now I want no consumer debt, and a nice but affordable house. 10 years, no debt except the house (i.e. student loans paid for) with the kids' college funds pretty much set. 25 years, retired! House paid for, college paid for, big retirement savings. Living the dream, basically.

simplyelise · April 2015

MissChanandlerBong said:

als1982 said:
4. What were your biggest downfalls?
Target. That place is my kryptonite. But seriously, I think we still need to get a better mindset about feeling like we "earned" or "deserve" some splurges because of all the progress we've been making and how hard we've been working. We definitely have some fun money in the budget, we just need to be careful not to go overboard.

This. We struggle with this all the time. We're putting 47-50% of our takehome towards debt right now, so it's really easy to think, we deserve pizza/alcohol/date night/whatever. Awesome that your husband is getting more involved, that support and accountability is the only thing that keeps us on track.

March/April check-in

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