Navigating life and finances
Not bad for a Monday!
Because sometimes we could all use a little motivation.
It’s finally here, my first Motivational Monday! I decided to start doing this as a way to encourage myself (and hopefully some of you as well) to earn and save more money. My goal is to make and save at least an extra $2,020 in 2020. This amount is in addition to our other goal of saving $12,000 for our fully-funded emergency fund. [Read more…]
The kiddo I care for is still sick. Initially, his mom felt he was on the mend and doing better. On Thursday, his symptoms worsened, so she took him to the emergency room. The poor little fella is now in the hospital, being treated for RSV and pneumonia. We are all tracing this back to the “snot-nosed kid” where his sister attends gymnastics. [Read more…]
Today is my third missed day of work this week. And all because of a cold that I most likely caught from going to work. Ugh! In all fairness, yesterday would have probably been a day off because of the holiday. But that still leaves me with no hours for the week. For all these missed days, I’ve left it up to the kiddo’s mom whether or not she wanted me to come. In trying to break the cycle of passing this cold back and forth, I think it is wise to avoid more contact until these germs die. The kiddo’s mom traced it back to (in her words) a “snot-nosed kid” where her daughter attends gymnastics. I’d take it a step further and say it was the parent who should have kept the “snot-nosed kid” away from a non-essential activity. At least with it now being several days into this cold, I feel that the worst of it is over. [Read more…]
Here it is, the last day of 2019. Oh, what a year it was! My mom always used to say that the older you get, the faster time goes. Sure does seem that way. Today I took some time to look back at some blog posts I wrote. There sure were a lot of highs and lows, but I suppose that’s the way life goes. [Read more…]
Winter weather. For those of us in snowy climates (I’m in the midwest), it is often a big UGH! Yesterday it was freezing rain, and today we are under a warning that may give us up to 16 inches of the white stuff. Surprisingly, Hubs was able to fly out as scheduled. While our road was a sheet of ice, the main roads were heavily salted, so okay for driving. I was secretly hoping that the airline would cancel Hub’s flight. I would have liked having him home with today’s storm. Oh well. I’ve dealt with other nasty winter storms, and I’ll deal with this one too. [Read more…]
Happy belated Christmas! We had a very low-key Christmas. Our neighbors came over for an hour or so, and for the rest, we spent time looking over house ideas. We didn’t exchange any gifts. When Hubs was home last, I had given him a couple of books about the history of our area, so that was his gift. I told Hubs that the TV we got for our bedroom a month or so ago was plenty for me. [Read more…]
As 2020 approaches, I think I need to add some measurable numbers and dates to my previous goals, and also add a few other things to help keep me motivated. Many of you hit the nail on the head when you said I am motivated by having goals. Yes, I am! So, here are my 2020 Goals Expanded: [Read more…]
I got pulled over on Thursday. Nothing worse than seeing a police car with their lights on come out of nowhere! As it was, I was pulling into the Wal-Mart parking lot. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what I might have done wrong to get stopped. It turns out that one of my brake lights was out. The officer asked for all the usual stuff, insurance, registration, and license. I had yet to put my new tag on my car, but thankfully was still legal (until next week) and did have it in the glove compartment. All turned out well with no ticket. Surprising, because I was kind of expecting one of the “fix-it tickets,” but the officer just let me go on my merry way. [Read more…]
Over the weekend, I spent a lot of time scrutinizing our 2019 finances. While we did well paying off our debt, I know there were areas where I was sloppy and could should have done better. I think I became so overly focused on the debt that I lost track of the day-to-day stuff. No doubt, not paying closer attention ended up costing us more over the course of the year. [Read more…]
“If you aim at nothing you will hit it every time.” Zig Ziglar
I’ve always loved that quote by Zig Ziglar because there is so much truth behind it. Goals are so important for making things happen. I know that our quest to get debt free (minus the mortgage) wouldn’t have happened had we not had goals and a plan to see them through. While things didn’t always happen precisely how or when we planned, never once did we lose focus of the bullseye. [Read more…]