April Goals

I'm a little behind in writing about my April Goals, but here goes.....

I accomplished all of my April Goals/Tasks!!
They were:

• Pay at least $600 to Dell (down to 1300)
• Increase automatic ING to $20/bi-weekly
• Increase Duke Energy Stock to $50/month
• Redo W4 to increase paycheck
• Increase Savings by $1400 (to $2300)
• Receive State Tax Return

I had a pretty good month overall.

I decided last month to bump up my emergency savings. I currently have it as my highest priority. I should have my goal of $5000 by July or August.

I am also concentrating on knocking out my dell debt. I currently still have no iterest rate for my debt account, but only if I get it paid off this year (which, I will, of course).

I continued to put 1% of my salary into the "parents" ING account I opened.

I was very pleased with my decision to increase my paycheck by decreasing the weekly taxes I pay. I sure do love having a bonus when I receive my tax return, but everything I have read suggests that this is just silly! It's a very smart move to make IF you make sure you save the extra money you receive that would normally be going to taxes. I am! I have increased my goals for the rest of the year to reflect this change. It made a huge difference in my goals by increasing my check $100 every two weeks. I'm fine with that!

My parents

Today is Mother's day. I went home and spent the day with my family. It was a long overdue visit!

We had a talk about finances. I know my parents are in bad financial shape. I've been anxious to find out if they are saving any for the future.

It turns out....it's not quite as bad as I had pictured. My dad has a pension from a previous job. There is, of course, social security, but my parents are on the young end of the baby boomers. I tried to let them know this means their social security could be less than it says it will be now.

They spoke of the desire to open a savings account. Also, my mom showed me that she has just recently started contributing to her 401K. 2% is a start....it's better than 0%! I talked to her about upping the contribution another % every few months.

Overall, it was a better conversation than I had expected. I know this still seems bad, but it is more progress than I thought. I wish them the best and will try to keep prodding them.