reflection

photo credit: daveynin

You may have noticed I disappeared over the holidays. I had planned to continue posting, but realized pretty quickly that if I was going to enjoy my holiday (and my rare time off for my husband) then I needed to put the computer and my iPhone down, and back slowly away. Slowly, so they didn’t jump at me while my back was turned and reattach to my fingers.

It’s not that I don’t love to blog, read blogs, twitter, or the interwebs-I do! But I needed some perspective. Some time to chill, relax, and think over everything.

I have been blogging for nearly a year, but not with the same level of passion I‘ve thrown into it in the last 3 months. September-December is a complete blur of trips, busy schedules, blog posts I wrote in my head that never got to see the light of day, and immense frustration that I could do more.

With a little help from my always brilliant and kind husband I realized that I’ve been throwing myself into things like throwing spaghetti at a wall. Sometimes I was throwing something a little slimy, sometimes it was an underdone idea, and sometimes no matter how hard I threw myself at some project or idea it just would not stick.

What I was left with were the things that did stick. The things I loved, the things I cared about, the things that matter to me, and I’m basing my resolutions around what’s important to me. Sorry, twittering might take a hit. Here is what you can expect from the ¢entsible life, and me, this year.

2010 is gonna rock!

the ¢entsible life will be even more awesome. Here’s how:

Add Subscribers: I have about 300 subscribers right now. I want to triple that number. My goal is to have 1000 subscribers by June. How can you help? Send a link to the ¢entsible life to friends and family, or share my site via social media (there are handy links at the bottom of all my posts).
Earn Revenue: I’ll be honest, I have earned a small amount of money from this site, and I’d like to earn more. Through ads you see running on the sidebars, or links that I get a few pennies for, and from several advertisers (again links are in the sidebars). My goal is to earn and extra $1,000/month from my site this year. (see more on this below in debt-free)
Honing my Focus: I started this blog to write about personal finance, which had become a slight obsession for me, but I realized that writing strictly about personal finance is not what I want to do. While the ¢entsible life will continue to cover personal finance, I also want to cover other areas related to family, finances, and fulfilling your dreams on a budget. I will be adding more posts (and eventually areas of the site) that will cover parenting, homeschooling, balancing working and staying at home and more.
Creating Community: One of the things I love about the internet is how close it makes people from all over the world. I want to talk to you more. Leave me a comment, send me an email, talk to me on twitter, or follow me on Facebook. I love to connect with people, and will answer almost any question you have.
Press: I love to write. I love to talk about things. You can see a partial list of where I’ve been featured, but I aim to make my press page a veritable who’s who of online and traditional media.
Projects: I am planning a few projects right now, and will share them with you soon. First is a teleseries called Independently Wealthy Women. I feel like a small fish in a very big pond, but am thrilled to be a part of the project.
Conferences: I’m seeking sponsorship (email me if you’re an interested sponsor!) for several conferences this year including Blissdom, Mom 2.0, BlogHer ‘10, EVO, and possibly more. I am aiming to attend at least 1 conference.
Giveaways!: I will doing more giveaways than ever before this year. Look for some great stuff around my blogiversary.

I am superwoman.

Play more: Over the last few months it has been extremely hard to find balance. Saying “yes” to everything worked for me for awhile, but it’s clear to me that just being mom isn’t enough, but being a workaholic mom doesn’t work either. I will make time every day for “floor” time for each kid.
Exercise Daily: I also put my health, and fitness on the backburner, and that has simple got to stop. I’ve started doing Jillian Michaels – 30 Day Shred, and will continue to exercise every day barring extreme injuries, or hospital-needing ill health. (more on this next week) I also plan on starting to train for a lifetime goal I have. (more on that when I start)
Eat Right: Another area I’ve been ignoring, and something I am extraordinarily passionate about is eating well. The challenge won’t just be to eat well, but I am challenging myself to make every meal at home for the next year. (more on this tomorrow)
Read more BOOKS: I love blogs, but as an avid reader I need to make more time to read actual books. My goal is to read one book a week for a total of 52 books this year. I will write brief reviews each week of the books I read. I will read some personal finance books, but I’ll also mix in fiction, non-fiction, and parenting books.
Make my marriage a priority: This one is extremely important to me. My husband and I have been partners for 14 years, and married for 9 years yesterday. Every Saturday night whether we can get out of the house or not we have committed to date night. It’s been good for us. We put down computers and phones, put the kids to bed and watch movies, TV, or play a game.
Have 1 month’s expenses in our Emergency Fund: While we are still paying off debt it doesn’t make sense to have a huge emergency fund, but the baby emergency fund just isn’t enough. I set aside $50/paycheck to go to this goal. It isn’t much, but it will add up over the next year. Stretch goal: Fully fund 3 month’s expenses.
Pay off 1/2 our debt: It’s not a stretch, but it’s part of our plan, and since our plan has been working so far (we have paid off over $10K in debt already), we’ll stick with the plan. As I said above I’d like to earn more from the website, and EVERY penny of that will go to paying off our debt even further. Stretch goal: Pay off all our debt aside from our mortgage.

That’s all. I think it looks like an EASY list. What are your goals for this year? Have a question about mine, let me know in the comments!

Kelly

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I was asked to share a story about Finance Lessons Learned the Hard Way for the Lifetuner Chat Carnival. That could easily be the title of my life story. Everything we’ve learned in the last year, we learned the hard way, and we learned more than once.

We’ve made so many mistakes along the way, and most of them were avoidable. Many of them were made under the duress of having 4 small kids (or being pregnant with one of said kids), so I blame the hormones. The rest I’m 100% accountable for, but I also think my inner spender has a lot to do with it.

Here are 10 stupid mistakes that cost us thousands of dollars. Some are overall spending patterns/issues, and some are specific.

getting into debt: We should have spent what we earned, and never any more. At the time our choices seemed limited, and credit was the answer. That $1500 credit card bill seemed insurmountable. Now I laugh in the face of $1,500 and wish we had paid it off and never used credit again.
lifestyle inflation: When hubby’s hard work finally paid off and he started earning more we should have saved more. Instead we spent on trivial things, and saved some, but not as much as we could have.
buying a used wagon instead of a minivan: I used to be anti-minivans. I know dumb, but a woman has to maintain some sense of self! We bought a wagon about 1 1/2 months before we found out number 3 was on her way. No, 3 car seats don’t fit in a small wagon.
leasing a minivan: See above, the solution lease a van. DUMB.
spending windfalls: Every time we got a windfall in the past we spent it. We thought we deserved it. Pfffblt.
buying too much stuff: There was a time when we didn’t have enough stuff. So we bought stuff, and then we bought more, and more, and then we had way more than we needed. Despite moving I still have piles of stuff to get rid of, sell or donate. this goes hand in hand with…
unconsciously spending: No not sleep-spending, but spending when you aren’t thinking. Like when I’m out with the kids after getting 6 hours of interrupted sleep. This happened a LOT when the kids were younger, and it still happens sometimes.
buying a bigger house: Yes, we needed the space, but we spent a year looking for a new house, and ended up buying a fixer upper for way more than we should have spent. Why? Because our house sold and we had 60 days to find a place, and this was the best house that we could afford in the location we are in. It also didn’t help that during that year we didn’t save a dime.
not having an emergency fund: I didn’t even know what one was for many years. I thought it was when you borrowed against your credit card when you needed it. Not really, but that’s how we lived.
not planning spending: Our lives require so much planning, that sometimes we don’t want to do any more planning. Big mistake! We should plan every penny we spend even if it’s just called “weekend money” or “fun money”.