Friday, January 1, 2010

I love 2011!

I am not really a resolutions type of girl, but this year I have a goal I am striving toward. Namely, I want to be debt free by the end of 2010 (excluding our mortgage, of course). No credit cards, no auto loans, no dental bills, NO DEBT!

Although I wouldn't say that John and I are bad with money, we could certainly be better. On the pros side, we always pay our bills on time, John loves donating to worthy causes, and we even manage to save a little money every month (not much, but we do save a little). On the cons side, we spend way too much at the grocery store, I have an addiction to Target, and my husband loves those no interest/no payments deals. He will buy anything if they offer him no interest for a year.

In the long run, there are so many things we want to achieve financially. We want to save more money (so we don't have to rely on credit cards anymore). We want to start college funds for the kids. We want to put more money in our retirement account. We want to refinish our basement. We want to remodel our kitchen. But we can't do any of these things until we pay off our credit cards.

We have discussed our options and have figured out a budget for the upcoming year. According to our plan, we will only have to pinch pennies for the next 10 to 11 months. This means no big purchases, no new clothes, no eating out. If we can follow through with our plan, we will be debt free by the end of 2010.

Basically, 2010 is going to be a crappy year. But 2011 is going to be AWESOME!

14 comments:

Laura Marchant said...

Wow! Good for you guys!

Jenny said...

Sounds great!

Clare said...

good luck! that will be awesome!!

Unknown said...

Very impressive!

Kris said...

Good for you!

anymommy said...

It's an excellent goal. We just started a new budget too. Here's to a frugal 2010 and a much more secure 2011.

Jenn M said...

Sounds like a great plan! Good luck!

Rachel said...

I am so impressed. Good job!!

Amanda said...

Stick with it!
Wishing you all the very best for 2010 :-)

Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...

"live like no one else now, so that you can live like no one else later."

Eliza said...

i love your optimism! Can't wait to resd the posts along the way!

Bon said...

dude. i'm impressed.

we do okay, mostly b/c our mortgage is super low and our car is now paid off (it was cheap) but we could be saving a lot more and paying a lot more down if we got it together.

here's to you...and to 2011!

amanda said...

we just did our big 2010 budget and things are going to be "forcefully" tight for many of the same reasons.

not sure how i will survive without my many trips to target??

budget buddies?