MyMoneyMinute.com

Pet Emergency

Odie, a 2 year-old runt of a mutt, is our youngest of three dogs.  Earlier this week, he began to refuse food and not hold it down when he did manage to eat a bit.  Tuesday’s trip to the vet resulted in a few prescriptions, but not any diagnosis of the problem.

Yesterday, with Odie still rarely eating, and having dropped about 5 of his 33 pounds, we took a 2nd trip to the vet.  Bloodwork was done that eliminated pancreatitis.  Then, after two x-rays, they found an obstruction in his intestine.  The vet said it was probably a hard piece of plastic, or possibly a piece of metal.  Odie had swallowed the object, it had traveled through the stomach, but was lodged in the intestine on the way out.  The only way to retrieve the obstruction was to perform a surgery called a gastrotomy.

Odie’s gastrotomy surgery was yesterday afternoon.  The vet said it went well.  Oh, and the obstruction blocking his intestine?  A SOCK.  Not a hard plastic, not a piece of metal, a SOCK; apparently one that’s 12-18 inches long too!  I guess our lovable mutt skipped over the smaller ankle socks and went straight for the quality threads.

Odie is staying the night at the vet, resting comfortably, and we hope he makes a speedy recovery without any complications.

Life Happens

All this stress with Odie reminds me that life happens, and we can’t control when we will have emergencies.  Kids break arms, cars break down, and funerals happen three states away.

While we can’t prevent emergencies, we can do our part to plan for them.  WHEN (not IF) emergencies will happen, we need to be prepared.  An adequate Emergency Fund has 3 to 6 month’s worth of your household expenses.  We all know this is a down economy and we’re battling through a recession.  But even if you don’t yet have an adequately-funded Emergency Fund, anything is better than nothing!  It’s never too late to start — do what you can to put aside some money to help WHEN the bad times strike.  This will help you avoid credit card debt or medical bills, which drag you down with monthly payments.

Diversifying our Emergency Portfolio

Luckily in our situation, we have a few options to help cover the costs of Odie’s sock surgery:

• Any extra money remaining at the end of the month that would have been applied to our debt snowball.
• A line-item in our monthly budget for our dogs’ medical care.  Any remaining balance each month carries over to the next (kind of like cell phone “rollover” minutes), which helps us build a dog medical fund for annual check-ups and emergencies like this one.
• Stopping our debt snowball payment for a month and applying it to our vet bill.
• A $1,000 “baby” Emergency Fund.

Do you have a crazy pet story?

What options do you use to prevent debt accumulation when emergencies happen?

Pets, emergency fund baby emergency fund, Budget, debt snowball, emergency fund, Pets

It’s never too late to be who you might have been.

George Eliot – English novelist (1819 – 1880)

The New Year has come and gone.  The world keeps on moving.  Headlines depict stories of airplanes landing in the Hudson and presidential inaugurations, and they provide us with fuzzy memories of those resolutions we vowed to uphold oh so long ago.  What, if anything, can we do about it?  Here are some tips & thoughts on New Years Resolutions.

The Bad News

Resolutions alone do not work!

All a “resolution” does is merely promise to do something.  It is a declaration of intent; or a statement that you resolve to act upon something.   Especially when coupled with the New Year, resolutions are almost wishful thinking from the start if you examine a person’s attitudes — and I’m as guilty as the next guy!  Here’s some typical New Years resolutions (with their corresponding underlying motivation included):

• I really should quit smoking; I know it’s bad for my health.
• I need to lose some weight and eat healthier.
• I need to start working out.
• I gotta get a handle on these bills and start saving for retirement.
• I’d like to spend less time at work & more time with my family.

The Good News

You will succeed if you create a Plan to follow through with your resolution.

A resolution identifies your wishes.   A plan adds integrity to your words by providing a detailed course of action.  A good plan will keep you on track and give you a sense of purpose.

Tips for Setting Goals

Like others, I advocate setting S.M.A.R.T. goals, where your goals are:

• Specific — be particular about what exactly you want to accomplish
  
• Measurable — make it something that you can tangibly evaluate.  Give yourself check-points or building blocks that you can use as markers of success.
  
• Attainable — (see below)
  
• Realistic — similar to Attainable, make it something within reach.  If a goal is too lofty to begin with, you will quit because you don’t give yourself the psychological boost of accomplishment.
  
• Time-based — set a time by which you accomplish your goal; a goal with an open-ended time frame will put you back at “resolution” status.
  

However, I would alter the “A” to stand for Accountability.  When setting goals, accountability is key.  If you’re married, a spouse is the perfect accountability partner for your household finances.  Working out with a buddy is a great way to stick with your fitness goals.

My Financial Goals for 2009

In discussing this year’s overall financial outlook with The Lovely Miss H, we’ve come up with a few financial goals we hope to attain and we have a plan for success:

1.  Pay off H’s Car Loan

Back in 2006, we bought a 2004 Saab 9-3 on eBay (a post for another day!).  With an expected bonus, the remainder of this note will be paid off no later than February!  This is personally exciting to me, because this will be the final consumer debt remaining on our snowball.  Only student loans to go!

S.M.A.R.T. approved

2.  Pay off My Bar Study Loan

Balance-wise, it is a very small educational loan.  But we want to just pay it off to use the extra $50/month to add to our snowball!  Plan is to have done by February as well.

S.M.A.R.T. approved

3.  Establish a “tweener” Emergency Fund

If you are extremely focused and intent on paying off your debt in an 18-24 month period, Dave Ramsey recommends a “baby” Emergency Fund of $1,000 to protect you from falling off the wagon back into credit card debt.  Once this is paid off, you then fully fund your Emergency Fund with 3 to 6 months expenses.

Since our student loans are a little more long-term than the consumer debt we’re about to pay off, we want to establish a “tweener” Emergency Fund of $10,000 by July.  This would give us a little more cushion so we can begin to attack & pay down our student loans.

S.M.A.R.T. approved

4.  Pay off H’s Parent Plus Loan from College

A moderately-sized loan in our world, we took this loan back over from H’s parents after getting jobs.  We just thought it was the right thing to do.  We believe it is attainable to knock this out in the 2nd half of the year, and have it paid off by December.

S.M.A.R.T. approved

5.  Begin saving for future car

I drive a 2001 Nissan Maxima with 180,000 miles on it.  It’s been a decent car for me, but eventually we will need to replace it.  In order to avoid getting back into car payments, we need to start saving.  Unfortunately, this remains in the “resolution” department, because no specific time-frame has been put on this goal.  Just proves that even us cool kids on the Internet aren’t perfect either!

NOT S.M.A.R.T. approved

It’s Never Too Late!

The beauty of the New Year is that it makes a great marker on the calendar to begin anew.  But like the quote above says, it is never too late to get started!  If you have a Plan that puts integrity to your Resolution, any day is a great day to start!
What are your experiences with New Years Resolutions?

Personal Finance consumer debt, debt, emergency fund, goals, new year, resolution, S.M.A.R.T., student loan

Welcome to MyMoneyMinute.com, and thanks for stopping by to check out my site!  To a certain extent, my personal finance journey reminds me of our presidential election and the upcoming inauguration day.  Here are some parallels between the two that are at most funny, at least light-hearted and amusing, and no matter what, a little cheesy

THE CAMPAIGN

A presidential campaign has become a long and drawn-out process, hasn’t it?  Dozens of months before the actual election, politicians come out of the woodworks to test the waters.  They form their exploratory committees.  Pollsters are put to work and seed money is raised.  You take a trip or ten to New Hampshire to gain popularity with those voting in the “First in the Nation” primary in hopes your campaign gains traction.  Finally you declare your candidacy, attend debates, shake hands, and kiss babies. Other candidates drop out and your platform takes you to the top.  You win your primary, continue to campaign, and victory in the general election is in sight!

My Personal Finance Journey
Likewise, my personal finance journey has been a long, drawn-out process.  This quest and awareness really began about two years ago, and I’ve been soaking up knowledge and fundamentals on personal finance ever since.  I realized our family had too much debt, and wanted to right the ship before ten or twenty years went by and we can’t figure out where our money went and why we’re not achieving our financial goals.  This awareness hit me on many different levels, including family relationships, spiritually, and career-wise.  So I started to test the waters.  At first it was casually mentioning to friends about books I read or segments of radio shows like Dave Ramsey’s that I had heard.  Most importantly, my exploratory committee (aka my wife!) was on board with the campaign to get on track with our finances.

While I didn’t make any trips to New Hampshire, there are certainly many opponents faced in my journey.  But because our family has chosen to establish and execute a plan, we’ve been able to defeat our primary opponents that can prohibit financial growth – opponents like unemployment, income fluctuations, and consumer debt.

While the debt dragon is far from slain (pesky student loans!!), I’m on an established track that will lead to financial success, which in turn, bleeds into all areas of my life.  I have gained traction.  There are plenty of obstacles still to overcome, but we have won a significant victory in that our habits and mindset have changed.

Whether Republican or Democrat, both presidential candidates campaigned on change.  And in our finances, we voted for change – a change in the way we think, act, and relate to our finances.

THE ACCEPTANCE SPEECH
Victory has been achieved!  The podium is yours.  Cheesy music like “Simply the Best” or “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow” plays in the background as you enter the stage.

The candidate appears to the people (in Obama’s case, perhaps a million or more in person!), thanks supporters, remains gracious to opponents, and promises all constituents the best leadership and representation possible.

My Personal Finance Journey

***I enter the stage.  My political music of choice?  Let’s go with “Only in America” by Brooks & Dunn.  It’s Patriotic, inspiring, with just enough of a cheesy country music twist to be appropriate for a victory speech.  A country group may not do well with the East Coast demographic, so I’ll have to double-check with my pollsters.***

First off, special thanks particularly goes to my buddy PT from Prime Time Money, who has provided me tons of information and strategy on how to start a personal finance blog.  I also want to give a big shout out to Lance, Chief Creative PixelMonkey at PixelPops.com, a great friend who has helped me with domain names and server setup.  And of course, my wife, The Lovely Miss H, who is with me on this fun choose-your-own adventure we call life.

I want to thank all of my readers, because without you, none of this is possible!  I hope you find it helpful, at least slightly entertaining, and something you can relate to.  Money and Personal Finance touch on almost every area of our lives, and I hope the chronicles of my ups & downs help increase your financial awareness in a positive direction.

THE FIRST 100 DAYS
After being sworn in, the new president begins his honeymoon phase where he settles into his new role.  Current issues such as unemployment, the credit crunch, and on-going War on Terror are on the people’s minds.  However, it is in these first 100 days where the president sets the agenda for the foreseeable future of his administration.  New and incomprehensible issues can and will pop up, but the tone and fundamentals of the administration begin to be set.

My Personal Finance Journey
Similarly, we do not know what will happen with any of our personal finances, including my own.  New issues can, and are as we speak, popping up that change parts of the equation.  However, there will always be fundamental personal finance issues we all deal with.  I have many post ideas and I look forward to setting the tone of this blog with these fundamental posts.  However, I also plan to give flexibility to this site’s path to allow for changes in my life and the readers desires.

MyMoneyMinute.com is a reflection of my personal finance passion, and I plan on following where it leads.  I look forward to interacting with many of you who join me for the ride!

I am Jason (at) MyMoneyMinute (dot) com, and I approve this message.

Baby photo by alopezc72

Brooks & Dunn photo by sergio_leenen

Personal Finance campaign, credit, debt, election, inauguration, mymoneyminute.com, Obama