Some frugal goals

Happy New Year!

I’m not much of a New Year’s resolution sort of person, but since posting my goals on my blog seems to work so well for me, I thought I’d write down a couple of money-related ones. I’ll try to remember to do a check-in post each month in which I will report on how well I’m doing with each goal.

1) I’d like for the kids and me to eat three non-cereal breakfasts per week. I do usually manage to purchase cereal pretty cheaply, but even cheaply obtained cereal is not as cheap as, say, oatmeal. If things go well, I may manage to give cereal the boot more than three mornings a week, but I’m going to set my goal at a manageable three for now.

I’ll post any well-received non-cereal breakfast recipes for you all, of course.

2) I’d like to save up an emergency fund that is equivalent to 3-6 months of living expenses by the end of the year. I’d REALLY like to get it up to six month’s worth by then, but I don’t know if that’s do-able. I’m going to do some calculations next week and come up with some hard numbers, as I’m not entirely sure what three or six months of living expenses adds up to.

3)I’d like to be more disciplined about keeping Quicken updated. I do a very good job of keeping up on our bills and paying everything on time, but I’m not the best at record keeping(actually, I stink at it!), and I know I’d feel better if I improved in this area.

4)I’d like to save up some money to use this summer. While my income from playing at church stays the same year round, my piano teaching income goes down dramatically in the summertime since most of my students take time off for at least part of the summer. In past years we haven’t done a very good job of preparing for this and so sometimes by the end of summer we’re not in very good shape financially. If we saved $1000 by the end of May, we’d have $333 for each month of the summer, and that coupled with the teaching money that I’m able to earn each month would be enough to keep us on track.

I’m a little nervous about my Quicken goal, as I’ve spent a good many years in a chronically behind state when it comes to my record keeping. But, I spent a good many years wasting food and by God’s grace, I’m now a reformed food-waster. So, I suppose it is possible that I could learn to be a good record-keeper in 2009. Stay tuned!

photo by faeryboots