2007 Third Quarter Report
Earlier this year, I established goals for 2007 to help the partner and I work together toward something and help us stretch a little to see what is possible.
We completed our first quarter review in march, totally missed the second quarter review, and are now summing up our third quarter progress.
Goal: Increase Savings for Home Purchase to $20,000 by July 2007. 2007 Plan of action - increase current savings from $300/month to $700/month - this comes at the cost of scaling back our debt reduction. The additional $500/month will come from ebay sales.
Progress: I think we met this goal in terms of sheer numbers, but not through savings deposits of $1,200 a month. The partner did contribute $3,000 from his personal accounts (tool and ebay sales) that would cover the $500/month ebay sales. Also, as the house purcahse got closer, many housing costs arrived before clothing (inspections, surveys, etc) and we just paid for those out of budget instead of out of savings.
Overall, I’d say that we met this goal!
Goal: Reduce Credit Card Debt to $10,000 by December 2007. Plan of action - this will be worked out in quarterly steps with a credit card debt load of $13,000 in March, $12,000 in June, $11,000 in September, and $10,000 in December.
Progress: Our current debt is $16,000, and not on schedule. We added about $3,000 in purchases since March and have not made real progress towards reducing debt as we juggle housing costs/repairs. We should re-focus on this goal throughout the end of the year and perhaps set a minimum goal of making sure our year does not end with more credit card debt than we started with.
Goal: Buy a house in July 2007: The house should have a minimum of 5 acres of land, a house sound enough to live in, preexisting outbuildings, and no restrictions on the construction of structures or the maintenance of livestock.
Progress: We’ve purchased a house with less than one acre of land (as alluded to in march). It is indeed sound enough to live in, has two outbuilding, though too small to do anything more than store a few items, and I’ll be calling today to find out about any possible building restrictions we may have (I expect there to be none).
Goal: Increase retirement investments to 15% of income by December 2007. Plan of action – increase to 5% in April, 10% in August, 15% in December.
Progress: We’ve not made any more progress on this and need to revisit this issue. The partner’s contributions are still at 6%, I believe. And mine are nonexisitant since I no longer work outside the home.
Goal: Increase Passive Income to $200/month. Plan of action - expand internet revenue and investments. Also, build passive income into the purchase of the new home in leasing out property or space.
Progress: In March I re-clarified this to include $200/month of alternative income. I’m am surpassing this goal by nearly 100% through sewing and other small jobs.
Overall: We’re doing good, especially since I didn’t give enough advanced financial consideration into the cost of repairs we’d incur with the new house. We knew these expenses would happen, but I didn’t factor them into our annual goals and our progress toward debt reduction and retirement savings goals have been affected by this.