Monthly Goals check-in

[minzy]

dr.girlfriend started a monthly goals thread in August...
pandce.proboards.com/thread/620972/set-monthly-goals

How is everyone doing? Any progress made? (All are free to join in!) What do you want to do in October?

[minzy]

I was able to walk my aunt through every step of her last will and testament, durable power of attorney, living will, and healthcare power of attorney. The preparation of those four documents was $750 in a MCOL, if anyone is looking for a data point. I spoke extensively with my aunt about her wishes, and we went line by line through everything. I was in close contact via phone and email with the attorney’s office. I arranged for the car service to get her to their office, and I was able to be on the Zoom call at the signing a couple of weeks ago. It is done! It went really well and despite my former career as a lawyer (in another area), I learned a lot about the process. We are all relieved it’s complete. Yay!

I think a goal for October will be to give some more money away. I did a bit of that at the end of September, but would like to exceed last year’s annual total, and we’re not there yet.

[ssmjlm]

I moved a bunch of money out of our checking account and either into some sub savings accounts, mostly DH's truck DP and into our Vanguard Fund.

DH has an eye appt next month so he will use the rest of our FSA on that. I put in a couple hundred in co-pays that never hit the automatic processing, so that helped as well. Worst case I'll stock up on some allergy meds that are $$ to finish up the last bit.

Still no word on the DCFSA. We have no plans to enroll in any programs during hybrid, so that's that. I wish there was something being done for those that ended up with excess.

[aprilsails]

I didn’t participate in August since I wasn’t working or doing anything money wise. I am back at work now and have a couple of things I need to take care of.

1. Take and pass the Quebec Professional Engineers exams. I need to do this by December. I have been putting it off for about 6 years now and I just need to bite the bullet. All of the study material is French and I need to take an extra French exam as well so Ugh. I’ve registered, now I just need to study and figure out an exam date. Quebec is going into more restrictions due to Covid so I’m waiting on a response from the organization.

2. Speak French more regularly with my coworkers. The Quebec employees in my organization are always happy to switch to English for me, but I can speak French, I just haven’t practiced for a year!

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3. Money-wise, I need to restart my additional RRSP payments, and set up an auto-deduction to DS’s RESP account. I also need to rebuild my savings account, since it is fully depleted after a year of maternity leave at 25% of my regular income. First paycheque is this Wednesday!!! Hooray!

[dr.girlfriend]

Ha, thanks for the reminder, I forgot all about this! I just bugged DH to check his 401k allocation, which was September's goal, so I'm not doing so hot so far. :-D Goal for October is to update all my charity donations with my new credit card number...we had a fraudulent charge so had to change card numbers. They are still getting pushed through but I don't know how long that will last and I get a notice every time.

[sadlebred]

August-Pay for full exterior house painting including some carpentry repair work & staining the deck (done) DONE

Sept.-Maybe pay for a retaining wall to be completely redone Done in August I decided to not do the fancy finishing bricks at that time, but wall needed to be done. The old wooden one came down in a couple of easy pushes by the person that installed it!I may do the fancy bricks early next year. I'm looking at about $250 if I do it myself or $400 to have them installed-I'll have them installed.

Oct-Dec Things are tight. I just had major surgery (think a week in the hospital) and will be on leave for work for a while. I'm lucky that I have amazing insurance and will incur virtually no costs for the surgery although part of the leave is unpaid. I'd planned for it.* My goals are to spend minimally other than basic bills and hope my parents understand that the holidays will be "frugal" this year--that will be the hard part.

 

*Yes, this makes me think long and hard how lucky I am, and I plan to make a donation to their foundation for those patients that are unable to pay once I recover next year or when I am able.

[melmel48]

To get my student loans under $10,000.

To pay $500-$600 to credit cards.

To get my vacation pay paid out from my old job! I have emailed and received no response.. so I shall email again.

[seeyalater52]

We just completed our Oct goal, which was to finish paying off a credit card we’d been paying down before the 0% interest expired.

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Goal was to do it before baby’s due date, so date wise we are on track even though he arrived early!


This month the goal is to get a handle on baby expenses and how they impact our budget in reality (vs estimated) as well as to start snowballing the former debt money into savings.

And my wife just found out that the 20% furlough they’re on will be continuing for the foreseeable future. Ugh.

[chpmnk1015]

i Hit my Aug goal which was refincing.

had to buy a new furnance but had cash saved for that and DH did the work.

For Oct- working to get estimates for redoing a fireplace and doing built in for our living room. Been saving and trying to save some more to be able to pay for that and new furniture, painting.

Also For rest of year goals: Trying to up the kids savings account.. making progress to where i want them to land by end of Dec but have a ways to go.
Also trying to not turn hear on til nov 1.. we shall see lol.

[wildrice]

I think mine is to switch to a new bank account this month. We are still using the credit union in our old state, where we haven't lived for over 2 years. It actually hasn't been an issue with mobile deposit and ATMs, but it would be nice to have a bank with a branch in case we ever do want to actually go in. I had planned to use a credit union, but I am actually thinking we will go with Chase instead. They are offering a promotion where they would end up giving us $500 if we switch, so that's hard to pass up. We already have 2 credit cards that we use for everyday purchases with them anyway, so it might even be kind of nice to have everything in 1 place.

Otherwise, my main goal is not to go over budget this month. We've paid for multiple house related things and some furniture in the last month or so, so I want to be able to be sure we can replace the savings money used for those.

[raangoli]

I am trying, but some random purchases have snuck in. I definitely pause and think 2-3-4 times before I buy something, asking myself if I really need this or if I just want it.

[fryjack2]

Our goals were to keep house projects under 20k and increase savings by 10%.

We have been cash flowing the projects and have paid a project manager thousands that we weren’t expecting to pay. All in, the projects are going to come in around 35k, in think. Fingers crossed. And we didn’t even do anything exciting 😩.

We have increased savings by at least 10% so at least that one was met.

[ellipses84]

Oops, I didn’t accomplish mine. I got all the paperwork filled out and tried to do it online and couldn’t for some reason so it’s been sitting on my desk for 2 months (I misplaced it for a month and found it yesterday).

I have done a lot of other MM stuff since then, like setting up a small business corporation, dealing with business accounting stuff, talked to a mortgage broker (we can’t buy right now but want to be prepared), paid off bills, improved our credit scores and applied for several rental houses (our market is hot and we need more space, our rent has gone up where we are).

I took on a 2nd job and I’m working more than full time and overseeing virtual schooling so life has been busy, along with working on some GOTV initiatives and doom-scrolling political news.

[ohgillian]

I had said I'd learn how to make my mom's quarterly tax payments. I kind of read up about it. But I also found out that if we get her brokerage to withhold taxes from her RMD, she won't need to make quarterly payments. So I kind of backdoor solved the problem.

I also had an unlisted goal to take care of my charitable giving and I have been working thru that. I am almost done! I have one more donation to do and I'm waiting on a certain piece of info before I do it.

[ohgillian]

I guess I should make a new goal, so my goal is to deal with closing 2 credit cards I've been meaning to close (both Hilton surpass). I'll do it by the end of the month. (Close or at lease close one and downgrade one.)

[HitchedIn2006]

Oct 8, 2020 7:47:12 GMT -5 wildrice said:

I think mine is to switch to a new bank account this month. We are still using the credit union in our old state, where we haven't lived for over 2 years. It actually hasn't been an issue with mobile deposit and ATMs, but it would be nice to have a bank with a branch in case we ever do want to actually go in. I had planned to use a credit union, but I am actually thinking we will go with Chase instead. They are offering a promotion where they would end up giving us $500 if we switch, so that's hard to pass up. We already have 2 credit cards that we use for everyday purchases with them anyway, so it might even be kind of nice to have everything in 1 place.

Otherwise, my main goal is not to go over budget this month. We've paid for multiple house related things and some furniture in the last month or so, so I want to be able to be sure we can replace the savings money used for those.

Check if your credit union is part of a co-op shared network and has branches in your new area. I was surprised to learn our old CU was part of a network and I could go to a network CU in other states and conduct business as usual!

Edit to add website search option:

co-opcreditunions.org/locator/?_ga=2.65008239.1578680101.1602633812-741969192.1602633812