CLAMP Campus Adventures

I hope everyone is having a happy new year!

I have several resolutions I’ve made for this new year. Between the wedding and my desire to sell the condo and buy a house, many are financial in nature, but there are some self-improvement ones in there too:

1. Since 2004 I have been working diligently to pay off a debt of $35,000 which I stupidly put on my credit cards in a bout of poor financial management and stupidity of the young. I will pay it off this year. My resolution is to NEVER get into this mess again. While I am not required to pay my balances off in full each month (I do that now anyway), if I don’t, I have to have a solid action plan to get rid of the balance in a reasonable amount of time. Hint of the day: If you know you’re about to make a large purchase (like an unexpected car repair), call your existing card companies and see if they’ll lower your rate. By promising to use their card for my auto repairs when my clutch needed to be replaced, Chase not only decreased my APR on my card, but also gave me 0% interest through the end of January. The debt will be paid in full by the end of this month, I didn’t pay any interest and Chase got a nice merchant fee on my $2k repair!
2. Save $260/mo towards the wedding.
3. Close my low interest earning savings at my local bank and move it to an Emigrant Direct account.
4. Move the funds in a low interest Citibank savings account attached to my investment account to a separate Emigrant Direct account where it’ll earn better interest. This money represents my house down-payment.
5. Go back to the gym 3 times a week for an hour each time.
6. Be healthier overall than I was in 2005. This can be simple as taking my thyroid medication regularly for the entire year without gaps to exercising more. It is not attached to my weight-loss goal.
7. Feel better about how I look and feel by the time I hit Hawaii for the honeymoon! I don’t want to look at my wedding and honeymoon pictures and constantly think about how I look like a beached whale!

How I will achieve these goals:

1 - 4: These goals require my continued use of budgeting and money management. I will continue to use Moneydance to help me manage my money and keep myself on target. It’s done wonders for me in my debt elimination goals and I plan to stay on target with it. I can make any financial target as long as I can set up a plan in Moneydance first.
5 - 7: There are many factors which will need to happen to contribute to this goal. First, I need to continue to be active on SparkPeople in order to improve my overall wellness. I need to maintain my motivation. This is the only thing I can truly count on in this process. I can ask for support and will likely receive it, but I can only depend on myself to follow through. One of the exercises they had us do on SparkPeople was to create a visualization collage. This collage has been hung throughout my home (it’s the first thing I see when I walk in the door; it’s on my refrigerator; it’s over the bathroom sink) so I can keep myself motivated and focused on my goals. More will be hung in the office when I go back to work tomorrow. I’ve put a copy below. Click on the thumbnail for a full version:

On a related note, it’s Spread the Spark week over on SparkPeople. I’m going to take time to talk about what it is and why I think the site is a great way to start a healthy lifestyle. Spark isn’t about dieting or just weight loss. I recommend simply joining for the articles and exercise, even if you’re not looking to lose weight right now. It’s informative, and I like the attitude. The community there has been excellent and supportive. It’s nice to get good words from strangers. In order to support SparkPeople, which provides these services for free, I’m going to be putting banners on each of my posts and in the RSS feed this week. Check it out!