Frugal Framnett

Here are the goals I am going to set for 2009.

1. Debt Reduction. We have a number of debts some are acceptable, some are tolerable, and some are intolerable. Risks - other obligations may dictate we fall back to the payment schedule (we are ahead on the schedule in both cases) or ask for a reduced payment (on one loan we can do that). However, if either risks come to pass, both loans should be retired by 2010.
   1. Impala Loan
   2. A personal loan from a relative
   3. At least one credit card
2. Closing the house We are in a good position to reduce our monthly house payment, by closing our construction loan and converting to a conventional 30 year loan. Record low interest rates this will most likely save us money! The risk here, is our PMI payments go away only to become tax escrow. Our taxes were a little higher than what we escrowed for.
3. Income Enhancement. It is very unlikely the traditional method of income increases are NOT going to visit us this year. I will have to increase income again by looking for more ways to use my professional skills outside of the 9-5 environment. However, I would like to further formalize those efforts by properly organizing and establishing those efforts. Another “jo-job”? Perhaps, but that would likely be during the spring or summer & involve a position at a place where I would like to get employee discounts.
4. Tracking spending. In the past I have been able to do this for limited area for extended times or for all areas on a limited time, but never for most spending over extended time. I will again, try to track our spending. By doing this, we can establish reasonable budgets.
5. Minimizing Utility Expenses. In previous posts I have discussed our heating bill. I am satisfied with our heating bill situation, but want to get our electric bill down.
6. Keep this blog up! I essentially stopped blogging here in mid to late spring of last year. I should keep it up and I hope this will help me keep my spirits up too!
7. Exercise more often. Yes, I consider that a financial goal. Exercise does wonders for my outlook on life, not to forget the benefits of being healthier! Some of that exercise can be put to use in activity intended to help minimize expenses, e.g. wood splitting & cutting, gardening, biking to the store instead of driving, etc.

One of the things I hate about goals is the self-examination that comes with failure to meet them, but that is what goals are for and in this post I review how we did in 2008 with respect to the goals I set in this post 2008 Goals!.
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If I have given you the impression I like to cook, that is good, because I do like to cook. This is pizza III in my current pizza pie cooking kick. This, in my opinion, is my best pizza effort EVER.

BTW, I consider YAPPie Place and similar derivations (e.g. Yappie’s Place) as my intellectual property. (more…)

• Most people talk of setting, recording, and tracking goals. I do that with this post.

1. Retiring Debt
   1. A loan against my 401(k) plan

   This loan will be paid off at the end of this month. I plan to put that to use to:

   2. Pay off the loan on our 2002 model impala car

   We have roughly one and a half years to go on the loan but with the retirement of our 401(K) loan we can double our payment on the Impala and get it off the books. Additional savings will kick in by dropping comprehensive coverage on the vehicle. We have two vehicles I am okay with dropping comp on one of them or looking into a way to just insure against a total loss or major damage.

   3. This is not a complete set of loans just a few we can pick off easily and in the near future. When those two are paid off I will revisit this situation. I hope to be in that happy state by October of 2008. However, by that time I have the feeling our home loan and taxes will be be taking up a fair amount of resources.
   4. Paying off our credit card bills every month.

   So far from this summer we have been doing that but we need to keep those bills small enough.

2. Saving at least a little bit every month.

It is not going to be a lot but at least a little bit, we will place the savings into a remote account (i.e. one not so easily transferred back into checking) so it will be harder to spend and if we can get used to going without the amount we are saving we can increase a little bit more every so often.

3. Tracking our spending.

As I have discussed here before what you can not measure you can not improve. To improve our spending habits we need to find out what they are. To accomplish this I will take every receipt we have and enter it into a spreadsheet I have set up for this purpose. Right now, expenditures are my priority. I expect, it will not be 100% on (e.g. pop machines do not issue receipts) but we should know with a fair amount of certainty where our money is going.

4. Developing other income streams.

I do not want to talk too much about this one.