Steps 10, 11 and 12

on Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Step 10 deals with priorities. This is an area we struggle with as a couple. Paying off debt is number one priority for both of us. This is a very big need. We are wasting money each month by paying interest to credit card companies that we do not need to be paying. Actually, my credit card is paid off and has been since early this month. S has a decent balance on is. We have decided that credit card debt needs to be paid off by the person that created it. This might not be the most effective way to pay it off but it is how we plan to deal with it.
Our second priority is our emergency fund. I will be adding as much as possible to it each month until we have $1,500 in it. This is our first goal. Once we reach this goal we plan to bump up some of our other savings areas and then come back to this goal to reach our eventual goal.
We also have a goal of going to Germany. This is a want. We are using all of our gifts from the wedding to pay for most of the trip. We are only adding a little bit of our own money. This will be one of our last savings goals for this year.

Step 11 deals with setting SMART Goals. A smart goal is something that is specific, measurable, achievable, rewarding and track able. Our side bar is all of our goals and they happen to fall into this category of goals without even know we were doing it. We also have stretch goals which might not be achievable but we wanted to challenge ourselves a little bit.

Step 12 is also about setting goals. It is about setting short, mid and long term goals. These are also laid out in our side bar.

It is really gratifying to find out that we have done so many of these steps without following this guide. It lets me believe that we are on the right track before starting this step journey.

-M

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