Review: Make Over Your Mornings

Well guys, I’ve completed Crystal Paine’s Make Over Your Mornings course as of today. The course is NOT just about getting up earlier, though I will say that I AM waking up earlier than normal (by choice). The course is about prioritizing your day, allowing yourself time to relax, setting goals for yourself and accomplishing them bit by bit, creating an effective to-do list and more!

First of all, I loved the course. But, I’m a long-time reader of Money Saving Mom and I love Crystal Paine! One of the main reasons I bought the course was because you get a peak into her life! The course is 14 days, and all 14 days include a chapter to read, a task out of a workbook and a video from Crystal (my favorite part!).Continue Reading

Make Over Your Mornings // An Update!

I mentioned the other day that one of my goals for June was to make over my mornings. Lately, I’ve been woken up every morning by one of my girls crying. I always want to get up early, but with my girls still not sleeping through the night, I always justified sleeping in. Being woken up by my girls crying was not setting my day up for success. I knew this, yet I still couldn’t get myself to get up before them.

June goals

I haven’t posted my goals in a while, but with June I have a few specific goals in mind that I wanted to share. In May, I didn’t accomplish too much since we vacationed to Arizona for 9 days. I had taken time off work the week prior and the entire time we were gone, so June is all about getting back into the swing of things! Surprisingly, my income for May was still high due to the fact that most of that work was completed in April. For June, I don’t expect my income to be high at all due to not working much in May and quitting one of my freelance writing jobs that I’ve had for nearly three years.

Let’s talk resolutions…

Being completely honest, I’m big on setting New Year’s resolutions but not that big on keeping them. Normally, our goals are huge – get married, buy a house, save $10K, get pregnant, etc. I can happily say that we normally accomplish these goals, but gosh – I don’t want anything big to happen in 2015! I want to be content and lay low this next year.

Starting with 2011, here’s how our past four years have looked in a nutshell:

2011: Got engaged, got married, got pregnant, started living off one income, bought a house

2012: Moved into house, had a baby, got pregnant again

2013: John started a new job, we had another baby, I had my best year yet freelancing

2014: Moved across the country from AZ to NC

November Income

I’m going to be honest – I actually highly debated skipping this month’s income recap as it wasn’t the greatest. But, I want to look back and see how far we’ve come so here goes…

First, let’s take a look back at my November goals. Income goals were $3000 for John and $1800 for me but before I get into what we hit, I’m going to recap our other goals.

November goals

October is going to be hard to beat. We surpassed our income goals by $1,578 and if I’m being honest, I don’t think we’re going to be able to do that again (though I sure hope we can!). November is the start of the holiday season and typically people would much rather spend their excess money on shopping, traveling and dining than they would on a home repair or remodel. We will continue to do everything in our power to bring in business, though, and try our hardest to beat our goals!

October income

I took a look back at my October goals and was pleasantly surprised. I’m normally really good at setting goals, but actually meeting them is a whole different story. So, let’s recap our income from last month…

John’s September Income: $435

Sarah’s September Income: $1450

Keep in mind we had just moved and John was technically unemployed as he was getting his business underway. October was his first full month being self-employed. Here’s what happened…

How to set – and keep! – your financial goals

I would say one of the biggest challenges my husband and I used to have was keeping our financial goals. We were GREAT at setting them, but not so great at keeping them or even remembering what they were. Setting goals is important in life, but if you don’t keep them, there’s really no point in even setting them.

Now, we’re pretty good at keeping all of our goals. Wanna know our secret?

Monthly bills 2014

To keep track of how we’re doing financially and how we’re increasing our net worth, it only makes sense to list out our fixed expenses for the month. Last month, you saw we only brought in $1,885. If this keeps up, we will be broke before we know it (it won’t…we moved from Arizona to North Carolina at the end of August and my husband was out of work for the month of September).

Our fixed bills

Apartment rent $1,305
Car payment $336
Cell phones $130
Car insurance $88
Internet $35
Netflix $8
Electric $100 (average, probably less in the winter)
Water $50

Total monthly bills: $2,052

Our variable bills

I’m not going to list out our variable bills because, well, they vary each month and I don’t see the point. While my husband and I do tell our money where to go each month, I don’t like to use the term “budget.” I’ll do a post on this, but our philosophy is we buy what we need and anything else we think about and see if we can afford it. I’m not going to budget $80 a month towards entertainment, because most months I don’t want to spend that much on entertainment. I’m also not going to budget $100 for diapers, because if we need more diapers before the month is over…we’re buying them! Those are a need and we will get those no matter what.

Instead of budgeting $500 for food, why not meal plan, cook at home as often as possible, buy items on sale and use coupons?…all the time. That’s what I do and it works great. Some months I’m sure I spend a bit more and others a bit less, but overall it evens out. We also only buy what we want to eat within that week. I hate stocking up on food, because most likely it will just sit in the freezer for months before getting thrown out.

Income

Assuming we need $3,000 per month to live, that means I would like our income to get to $4,500 a month to allow us to save and invest. Since John’s income goal for October is $3,000 and mine is $1,700, this is very realistic for us right now.

Readers: How much do your monthly fixed bills cost you?

October goals

On the first of each month I’m going to lay out our goals for the month, and then at the end of each month I’m going to recap our income and see if we met our goals. Since my husband and I are both self-employed, our income will fluctuate and it will be interesting to see our income grow (hopefully!) over the months/years. I also plan on talking a lot about our investing strategies and what we’re doing to generate a passive income. Anyways, on to the goals…

OCTOBER GOALS

Sarah income: $1700

Editing $800
Writing $900
Get one financial staff / guest posting job, paid or unpaid

John income: $3000 (first official month as a business owner — not bad!! Hope we hit this!!)

Get more organized with couponing

Set up IRA’s

John rollover: $7,990
Sarah rollover: $1,750

Get Synchrony savings account finalized. We are putting $20,000 into a high-yield savings account with Synchrony. More on this later…but why earn .05% interest when you can earn close to 1%?

Wake up earlier. While this isn’t specifically related to finance, it will help us reach our goals. With two little ones who still wake frequently throughout the night, it is H.A.R.D. to wake up before them. Since our move involved a 3-hour time change, the girls have been sleeping in until about 8:30 every morning. While I’m thankful for this extra sleep, I know I could accomplish so much more throughout the day if I committed to waking up at 6:30 or earlier.

Research more on investing. John and I are relatively new to investing other than having our old company 401(k) accounts. We hope to grow our investments immensely over the years – getting involved in everything from SEP IRAs to real estate.

Read one actual book. I am a knowledge-junkie by nature, but when it comes to reading an actual book…Well, I can’t even remember the last time I completed one. I checked out two from the library today and am hoping to read both of them…but my goal is just to complete one.

Go to Asheville, NC / Blue Ridge Parkway. Another personal goal, but now that we live on the east coast we need to start exploring! Blue Ridge Parkway is ranked one of America’s Most Scenic Drives, especially during the fall. Leaves change color mid-end October and you can bet I will be experiencing this!!

What are your goals for October, finance or otherwise?