"If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always received."

WARNING: This is loooooooooooooong.

“Everyone leads the exact life that he or she wants to be living,” is a quote (or something like it) that I’ve heard many times and I believe that in a lot of ways, it’s true. If you don’t like something about your life, change it – or at least be working towards making things better. If you are unhappy and you aren’t willing to fix it, then you are content with being unhappy.

Do I like living in a small, one-bedroom apartment and having OODLES of student loan debt? HECK NO. Are Peter and I working to fix things so that we can eventually have a debtless-life and enjoy a home of our own? ABSO-FRICKIN’- LUTELY!

Though, I feel like I’ve fallen off my goals that I made from my birthday. If anyone remembers them all, I’d give you a cookie, but since I have to look back at them, I’ll just repeat them below:

1. Save $5000
2. Apply to SU Org Leadership Doctoral Program
3. Read 26 books
4. Fully run a 5k
5. Get to goal weight
6. Make an additional $30 payment each month towards student loans
7. Make an additional $25 payment each month towards car
8. De-clutter/organize life at home and work
9. Commit to working out at least twice a week
10. Write a book

And somewhere in there I also said that I would post weekly updates. Oops?

Alright, so you can’t have goals without a plan to get there. You can reformulate a plan without taking time to assess where you are, where you want to go and what you need to do to get there.

This blog is a little bit of assessing where I am as well as where I want to go. The next installment will talk about what I need to do to get there.

Goal one: Financial Fitness

My number one goal that I listed for the year was to save $5000. It’s a lofty goal, but hopefully if I’m savvy enough, I can make it happen. I have been busting my butt trying to save money. Sometimes it’s easier than other times, but there are some weeks where we just HAVE to have to pay for something, or Mollie needs to go to the emergency vet, or you know we need food and fuel.

To aid in my attempt to save money, I recently started a part-time job (and by recently, I mean yesterday). I started searching in December, and had hoped to have a part-time position in place by January; however, it took a bit longer but I’m thrilled that I was able to start within the first part of February. I will be working 5am to 10am every Monday at LA Fitness Gym and I could not be happier! It is a great place to work that will also support my health goals (more on those later), plus it fits into my current work schedule. For my job and Shenandoah, I come in late to work one day a week so I can stay late. Sure, it’s gonna be tough waking up at 4am on Mondays and working from 5am straight through to 7 or 8pm, but it WILL be worth it! Another great quote that I’ve mentioned before is that “to live like no one else, you have to live like no one else.” I’m willing to make sacrifices and work extremely hard so that a. I reach my goals and b. to live the life I want and deserve.

I have been working on funding a few separate accounts. By no means am I a financial guru, but I have been reading a lot of advice columns, speaking with friends about their budgeting and financial goals and it’s great to have so much support!

My savings goals are separated into many categories, for which I have multiple accounts set up for those respective goals:

1. An emergency account of $1000 as a serious crap happens fund. Some call it a rainy day fund. This is the account that I absolutely will REFUSE to touch unless something huge, ridiculous or monstrous comes along BUT because I have other accounts set up, hopefully that won’t happen.

2. A ‘being prepared for taxes, tires, etc’ fund. I know that in May Peter and I will need to pay an insane amount of taxes on our cars (thanks, LoCo [Loudoun County] for the double taxation…we fought a war against that!), that we will need to pay to file our taxes and I will need new tires in the spring. My goal is to get about $1000 saved into this account and it will be a revolving account for big ticket payments, or things that we forget about…or will be saved for next year’s round of taxes.

3. To fund my savings account that is attached to my checking account to about $250 for serious “OH CRAP” times. In January, I started using the envelope system. I got away from that in February, but will be getting back to it with my next paycheck. I have been budgeting out the month’s expenses and each time I get paid, I give each line item (such as dinner with friends, fuel and groceries for the week, hair care, food or supplies for Mollie, social fun, etc.) an allotted amount then put that amount into an envelope. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. The amount in my savings attached to my checking will be for those unforeseen weeks where perhaps I budgeted too low for gas – and considering it is up to $3.15 a gallon here and rising, there may be weeks where my gas budget will need a little help from the “OH CRAP” fund.

4. Last, we have a long, long, LONG term savings account that hasn’t really received much funding (I’m working on parts 1, 2 and 3 right now), but eventually, we’d like to buy a house as I mentioned so this last long, long, LONG term savings account will be where we (eventually) start saving for a down payment.

Because it is financial related, I’ll go ahead and talk about goals 6 (additional $30 payment on my student loans) and 7 (additional $25 payment on my car). After reading a lot from Dave Ramsey and some other experts in the financial world, my new plan of attack is to pay my car off early. Currently, it is scheduled to be paid off in April of 2014; my plan is to have it paid off in April of 2013. Then, I will take that amount I was paying on my car payment and apply that to my student loans. Dave calls this “snowballing” your debt. I’d like to snowball it over a cliff, but ya know…apparently people like to be paid. I borrowed the money and I intend to pay it back.

My car payment is a very reasonable $257, but I have been consistently paying $280. For my February payment and going forward, I will pay $300. When I have trimmed other areas of my budget to allow for money to be freed up, I will raise that payment to $350 and be well on my way to

Why in the world am I sharing THIS MUCH of my personal finances with you? Well, I know a lot of my friends are in the same boat as I am and I’m hoping that together we can find ways to encourage each other and to reach our financial goals. Plus, a tip I’ve always lived by is share your goals with other people so that there are other folks holding you accountable. I wanted to call this goal financial freedom, but I went with financial fitness. Why? Because to me, calling it financial fitness means that I’m constantly working and evolving – and fitness is hard work. Being financial fit is equally important to me as having a healthy and fit body, so this area of my life takes a top priority.

I’m jumping all over the place (but it’s my blog so I can do what I want, right?) and since I just mentioned fitness, let’s talk about goals 4 (fully run a 5k), 5 (get to goal weight) and 9 (commit to working out twice a week).

Goal 2: Create and maintain a healthy life style

As I’ve written in my That’s Fit blogs, I’m learning every day how hard and sometimes how easy it can be to lead a healthy lifestyle. I have a loooooong ways to go, but I’ve also come a heck of a long way.

I am currently looking for a 5k to run in the spring, but my friend Auzar and I have talked about running and training for a race together so I’m SUPER stoked! Yay for a running buddy J I am averaging running two days a week, so I am also meeting my goal to work out AT LEAST twice a week. Why the emphasis on AT LEAST? I owe it to myself to move my body and get fit and I need to get to the gym no less than four to five times a week. Saying AT LEAST makes me go even on those days I don’t really feel like going…it’s my blog and my logic. So there.

I am going to get to my goal weight. My weight fluctuates (as everyone’s weight does) so as of this morning, I actually have about 53 pounds to go to reach my goal. Divided by eight months between now and November, that means I need to lose approximately 7 pounds each month. It’s doable, just have to get back to actually making progress.

For lack of better terminology…
Goal 3: Broaden my Intellectual Horizons

I am so behind on my book reading (goal 3: read 26 books)! I’ve only read three books; I should be finishing my 7^th book by now if I were sticking to the every other week finishing a book schedule I thought I would be following. I’m hoping that by eating healthier, exercising more and making adjustments in my life, I will have more energy and more time to sit down with my books again.

Alright. It is beyond time for me to stop procrastinating and finish my application (goal 2: apply to doctoral program). Geez. Ridiculous. I guess for me to finish my application, I need to look at what I still need to submit – before the June 1^st deadline:

1. 1^st Letter of Recommendation

2. 2^nd Letter of Recommendation

3. And yes, a 3^rd Letter of Recommendation

4. And essay or writing sample

5. Official transcript from Virginia Tech

6. Resume

So, none of that sounds *too* painful. The transcripts are easy as going on HokieSPA and filling out the request and submitting payment. Honestly the most difficult part will be finding the recommendation letters. Not that I don’t think I’m recommendable, I do, I just don’t like inconveniencing other people to help me. Does that sound weird? So, yes, it’s time to get my act together. I mean, I am going to be a doctor after all (hopefully).

As for my goal (10) of writing a book? Hmm, I’m stuck on this one. It would be really easy to write about my life, but I think maybe my mom and maybe Ashley would read it. As much as I love Jen Lancaster’s memoirs, I’m seriously not as funny as her, nor do I really think people care about what happens in my life – no matter how much I want to think other people might enjoy my tales and find them humorous. But, I’m still plotting out how this idea may fit into my goals.

Honestly, I feel like goal 8 (declutter/organize my life at home and work) really fits into each umbrella goal. I can’t keep up with my finances or a healthy life without carefully budgeting my time, keeping my files straight and keeping a clean home. I waste so much time at the grocery store – and waste so much money – when I don’t go to the store with a plan and a menu for the week. Keeping a handle on the clutter in my life as well as working on my organizational skills will aid in every facet of the goals I am working towards. Also, how on earth can I even think about working towards a doctoral degree without careful organization?

You may have noticed that I’ve streamlined my goals my new (and sort of improved since now I have a more definite plan of where I want to go) goals are:

1. Financial Fitness

2. Create and Maintain a Healthy Lifestyle

3. Broaden my Intellectual Horizons

I feel like lately I’ve been very sedentary towards my goals, so it was time to make some changes – starting with this blog. No matter if it is a work situation or a life challenge, it’s always important to make reflections. I will start blogging on a more regular basis. That’s a fair pledge. Perhaps it’ll be once a week, but it will be no less than monthly.