So far so good. My goal last week was to drink at least 64oz of water per day. I have, so far, achieved this every day. This week's goal is to eat breakfast every day. I've been having a cup of yogurt with bran grape-nuts type cereal in it. Hopefully this will help me manage my appetite and energy level better.

I haven't made much progress on the budget front yet. Its frustrating, as I don't really know where to start assembling the data. Do you keep a budget? If so, how do you go about it? I want something that's easy to maintain, and doesn't involve a lot of duplicating data that I'm already entering in Money. (The budgeting functions in Money leave a lot to be desired.)

I'm going to try to set some goals for this year. Rather than resolutions, which tend to be the fairly ambiguous, I'm going to try to use the SMART formula for setting the goals. The goals need to be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely.

To this end, I think I'm going to start by setting a monthly goal and weekly goals. The monthly goals will be a project to complete by the end of the month. The weekly goals will be more along the lines of habits I want to work on developing (or breaking). I'll report progress as I go, but I'll need help. I'd appreciate if all you readers keep me honest on this. If I don't update my progress, feel free to harass me about it.

To that end, my first goals are: for the month of January--to create a budget to help reach our new savings goals; and for the first week of the month, to drink at least 64oz of water each day. So... here goes.

October was an interesting month. We've made a lot of progress, but we're also relaxing a bit on some things. As usual, taxes and rent ate up about 40% of our income (which really isn't terrible). Gas was up, again. Groceries and Dinging Out were up slightly. However with winter coming, we'll probably see that go down a bit as we eat a lot of soup in the winter and soup is cheap. If you notice in the sidebar, the savings numbers actually went down. That's entirely because I made a decision to keep a buffer in the checking account. I've been a bit overly aggressive with moving extra money to Savings, so things have gotten a bit tight when small, unexpected things come up. So what I did was put $500 in the checking account, and then enter a $500 expense on Jan 1, 2007. So that $500 doesn't appear in my running balance. So there's always $500 more in the checking account than what I think there is. Just a safety net so that I can be more comfortable being aggressive with savings.

We'll finish Christmas and Vacation funds this month, and that will leave us with our more long-term goals for savings. Aiden's Headstone is a priority, and we'll probably have that money in place by the end of the year. (Obviously we'll then have to wait till at least spring to get it placed.) After that, one of the student loans needs to get paid off quickly, then it's retirement and house down payment to work on. With almost $40K in student loans still on the table, I'm happy to report that the net worth balance I'm showing is almost $3000 in the black! (granted most of that is in my 401k, so it's not accessible.

September was great. Although we didn't increase our savings, we were able to buy a new laptop and take a vacation, all without incurring more debt. And, we were able to up the savings for October. In general, our expenses were down a little with the exception of the vacation and computer expenses that were planned. Also, our net worth is finally showing as positive. We now have less debt than we have savings (granted, most of that savings is in our 401k's). We're looking forward. You'll notice that the sidebar graph is now showing new goals as the Emergency Fund goal is now funded, as is the vacation fund (for next year!). Christmas is next on the list. Then a headstone for Aiden. Hopefully those will both be done before the end of the year. Then we'll be able to move on to the bigger goals (Roth IRA and down payment for a house!)

Needless to say, we're pretty darn happy.

June was a fairly relaxed month in the finance realm, with one exception. I didn't pay enough attention during the middle of the month, when everything that is going out, goes out. Ended up having to make a transfer from savings. That was heartbreaking, as we haven't had to do that in months. However I was able to put it back fairly quickly. We had to make some minor car repairs, as well as renew the City Parking Sticker, so expenses there were up. We also had to take one of the cats in for regular check ups, so we didn't have as much extra as we would have liked at the end of the month. All in all we didn't make much progress, but we also didn't slide back any, so I'm satisfied.

Next month, we will (hopefully) have all our Credit Cards paid off. (We may use one to rent a car for our trip to Oregon.) We will hopefully see our net worth cross the $0 line next month, or the month after. We're very excited.

The road ahead is bumpy, but no longer mountainous, and somewhere, off in the distance I think I can see pavement.

This month, we weren't especially careful, and yet for most of the "discretionary" items, our spending was lower. And this includes several "social" events and a trip out of town. Our social life, such as it is, tends to go in phases. We'll barely leave the house for three months, then suddenly, have 3 events in 2 days. We're okay with that, but it does make budgeting interesting. In any case, our Dining Out expenses went down about 40%, but gas went up 46% (ouch!). We've also set some longer-term goals, such as savings priorities. You may have noticed the progress bar in the sidebar which shows our emergency fund goal, as well has credit card debt. The emergency fund is going up fairly quickly, and the debt one is rapidly dropping. We're thrilled with the progress on both of those. Unfortunately we're going to have to divert some of the savings for a while for a trip out of state in July. (My Brother is getting married in Oregon.) So we've got to pay for that. But before we leave, the Credit Card debt will be gone.

Our savings goals after we get back from Oregon will be to top off the emergency fund, then fund a vacation fund for our 5th anniversary trip, after that, a Christmas fund to cover gifts and any traveling we do for the holidays. Both of these funds will move back to the top of the list after the first of the year, as they will be annual. We'll top them off and then not touch them until we need them. After that we'll pay off one of the student loans (low balance, high interest). Then we'll set up a fund to pay for a headstone for Aiden. Then we start putting money away for the big goals. I've got a decent 401k right now, but we've put nothing away for TBWITWW since we got married. Our goal is to fully fund a Roth IRA for her starting next year. The final goal is a downpayment for a home. Hopefully with these goals in mind, we'll stay on track. I'm going to take some advice I've read and make a list of these goals and keep a copy in my wallet and a copy at my computer to remind me constantly what I'm working towards. I'll remember that every dollar I spend is one less to put towards these things.

From Get Rich Slowly:

But if you really want to see your savings grow, don’t just save your coins — save your one-dollar bills, too. If you come home with two or three dollar bills at the end of most days, it’s easy to accumulate $10/week (about $500/year). Don’t put your dollar bills into a jar, though; use an envelope.

TBWITWW and I have been saving change (we actually have 4 holders one for pennies, one for nickles & dimes, one for quarters, and one for state quarters we haven't sorted for the coin books) We don't use cash much, but I'm tempted to start adding dollars to this. Last time we cashed in change it paid for our rice cooker.