Get Your Finances in Line in 2009 UPDATE!

Wow, I've not updated this since APRIL! One of my goals for the 2010 edition of this will be to actually talk about it every month. We'll see how that goes!

We've done pretty well on our goals this year thus far.

1. Pay off the student loan. As of this writing, we owe $9,942. We think that we can pay it off by October if everything goes well. We've come this far using Dave Ramsey's "Gazelle Intensity" method, and we look forward to seeing it through.

Status: Done as of June 30.

2. We have an emergency fund in place, but we'd like to kick it up a notch. We could live at our current spending level for six months on our savings. We'd like to add to that during this year. We think that adding two more months worth is a reachable goal this year. It would be more but...

Status: Done...thanks to doing the siding ourselves instead of paying somebody to do it.

3. We need to think about replacing my husband's car. His '89 Honda has served us well, but it is really starting to show its age. We would like to replace it before it completely breaks down. He has been researching and test driving cars. We hope to buy a new to us car for him as soon as the student loan is gone, although we may wait. We keep going back and forth on this one.

Status: Postponed. Our goal date was to buy the new car this month, and we could do it, but my husband has decided he wants to squeeze a bit more life out of it. On the plus side, the extra months of savings may mean a better car for him later, as we do not plan to take out a loan for a car. UPDATE 12/23/09- We bought a car! Go here for details!

4. We want to earn at least $1000 extra on the side this year without sacrificing a lot of time. When we set this goal, it seemed awfully high, but as of this writing we've earned nearly $400 through various side jobs. If we carry on at the rate we're going, I see no reason that we will not meet or exceed this goal.

Status: Met- and due to a serendipitous teaching request, we have exceeded this goal by $600 as of this writing.

How is your 2009 going? Head here for other people's updates!