Responsibility

Today is the first day that I've ever felt positive and motivated to get my finances in order. My New Years resolution is to step up my game all around in my financial responsibility. My savings account actually has money in it, I paid my bills for the whole month of January all today, AND I even have an $80 allowance for the next two weeks!
I really wish I'd been this on top of my finances for the last nine months of my Air Force career, but you can't cry over spilled milk. At least I have a new wardrobe, a few new toys, and a great stock of cleaning supplies and sweet cereals. John has been really encouraging about it, which definitely makes me feel like I can do this. He's really good with saving and has a great credit score. I feel like, if I'm going to be with someone that has great credit, I should bring the same thing to the table. It's a work in progress but I'm going to get there.

BECOMING DEBT-FREE...
My long-term get-out-of-debt goals are already slowly being achieved. I finished paying off the money that I owed my dad today. I paid my cell phone bill (which is monthly). I finally got caught up on what I owed for my student loan last month, so today I made my payment for January (that's not even due until the 21st! WINNING!). I also set aside $82.00 to put toward my OSU debt, which I can't pay until I figure out who my debt was sent to.

I tried getting my free credit report online the other day, but for whatever reason, it wouldn't let me access my information... Soooo, I'm going to have to call in and request it. I need to do it really soon too because I can't even make the payment on my OSU debt until I find out WHO I'm sending the money to.

SAVING UP...
My long-term savings goals are to save up for a down payment and purchase a nice car, save four thousand dollars and move off base, and save up $5,000-8,000 to get InvisAlign braces. I think the biggest motivating factor in saving my money has to be that I don't have any sort of savings account to my name.

I want to start setting money aside for retirement, which you may think is a little too soon to be thinking about. But (worst case scenario) if I die young, all that money will go towards taking care of the people I love most in my stead. And I don't think that's a bad thing at all.

I don't know when, but one of these days I'm going to have a family. I want to be able to take care of their needs and help them learn how to work hard and achieve their wants. The best way I know how to prepare for that is to save my money, get out of debt, and work to build up my credit so they don't have to go without the necessities and a few life lessons about financial responsibility like I did growing up.


Con Mucho Amor,
K