New Goals

I finally got off my ass tonight after work to sit down and work on my finances. As depressing as it is, it does feel good to reassess the situation and get some goals in place for the next 9 months.

First off, my Quicken file for my checking account does not match what BofA says online that my balance should be. I have no idea what's missing, but there's money there. Luckily, I took out $275 cash from my checking account back when that whole debit card drama was going on. This was supposed to be cash for visiting a friend of mine in the city (who was there on a business trip), but those plans fell through (kinda luckily). So, I've been using that cash for just about all my purchases for the past couple of weeks. I do plan to print out my transactions since my last statement and double check the Quicken tomorrow.

Basically, I revamped my goals for the next 9 months tonight. There are now two sets of goals (short term and mid term). Short term goals are for the end of this year: getting my savings accounts beefed up and paying down credit cards and loans. The mid term goals are paying off my taxes (both state and Federal) before April 15, 2010. I'm well on my way for the state taxes. Federal is going to take a lot out of me to get it done, but I know that I can do it. The big pull on the Federal taxes is going to be filing my 2009 return as soon as I can. If I'm going to get a refund, all of that will go to paying down my 2008 balance. But, I was able to get myself onto a payment plan, so I'm hoping that will get all this finished sooner.

Of course, the MAJOR goal here would be to live within my $100 per week without using any credit cards and still working towards these new goals. I'm sure that it'll be tough, but I'm used to tough. Really, I just need to get off my ass and motivate myself actually to do this. I think I can.