Thanks!

Thanks to the folks who commented on my last couple of posts! I've been doing some more thinking since my last post about goal-setting. The main thing I took from the comments is that I have to see where our money is going first. While it needs some tweaking, I've come up with a rough figure for our monthly expenses: $5500. Our two biggest expenses are our mortgage ($2081) and credit cards (appx. $1300--though an estimated $400 of that is for my Amex charge which goes toward various house and "me" expenses that really belong in other categories). That figure of $1300 doesn't reflect the monthly minimum on the credit cards--we never just pay the minimum--but is instead the smallest amount we would put towards the balance.

The good news is that I realized we have a little over 2 months' living expenses in our savings account. I was actually a little worried about that, and it's nice to know that we're 2/3rds of the way toward the oft-recommended 3 months' minimum worth of expenses.

The bad news, of course, is that we're carrying a lot of credit card debt. I had an idea about how to wipe mine out by mid-April, but J had some understandable reservations so it's in a "wait and see" mode. More on that later.

Another concrete goal, inspired by the comments, is to figure out our household net worth. I've kind of been dreading doing that, for some reason. But, again, it's an issue of seeing where we stand now in order to set reasonable goals.

So, I feel like I'm well on my way to setting concrete, quantifiable goals, though I'm still planning on educating myself as much as possible during this next year. Thanks again!

In other news, I've settled on another, non-financial goal for this next year--I'm going to stop biting my nails. Yes, it's a disgusting habit; it grosses me out too and they're my nails! So, today I went to CVS and bought some bitter-tasting stuff to paint my nails with. It tastes positively nasty and makes flossing even more of a drag. I also bought some little cotton gloves to wear with moisturizer to bed. They'll probably give J the willies (with good reason too, I figure).