ellie's 2010 goals

saving
1. new/used car fund 13000
2. roof fund 5000
3. vacation 2500
4. personal savings 1000

other
communicate with my husband once a month in a sit down meeting about our money.
daily track spends on pencil/paper & weekly get the numbers into quicken
do whatever it takes to get out of my current job and get a better job
make some decisions about what is going to make me happy in my home (things to fix/improve) and act

Your personal savings is way too low....build it up to 6 months worth of expenses before you fund the car, vacations, etc....

Thanks for your concern, Mr Ayn Rand. I delighted to tell you that the past two years we worked on the "foundations" and eliminated all debt including our mortgage last fall. We have an emergency fund in place and make solid contributions to retirement. The biggest items for the foreseeable future are maintaining the house and eventually replacing our '01 and '03 vehicles. We saved to pay cash for the last car and I'm committed to the same in the future. The vacation fund is something we promised ourselves after becoming debt free. The personal savings fund is exactly that: I wanted to have my own savings account again. It's a modest goal, $20/week just to save.

This month money is going into savings but not much into goals yet. Putting aside money for quarterly taxes, oil pre buy contract, and car repairs. Haven't had a chance to sit down with husband yet to talk money yet and that's something we need to make time for. A couple of issues to smooth out: overspending on groceries, vacation plans, making a household fix it budget for the spring.

Funny, Mr Ayn Rand has made that statement his first post on a number of threads recently.

Anyway, I think you're doing great, ellie. You're my role model, having paid off that mortgage! Every time I think I'm crazy for wanting to do the same, I think of you.

Happy New Year!

Thanks, Cecily for the encouragement. Today at work they announced layoffs and cuts are coming over the next month. It looks like if my position remains, it will be part time. I don't know much else yet. Having the mortgage paid off gives us a little breathing room while I'm figuring out what's next. Also cuts don't go into effect until end of Feb. Time to be proactive.

Yikes! Good luck. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.

good luck to you, Ellie! you've worked hard to get where you are now, and here is where that hard work pays off in extra breathing room should your job be affected.

i just realized i titled my 2010 journal in a similar manner... i guess great minds think alike!

I have a plan on paper of changes I could make if there was a job cut. Step one is taking debit and credit cards out of my wallet, because I'm just not disciplined enough to go cold turkey on non essentials every time, all the time. Especially at the grocery store this week. Step two is to edit down gifting and future gifting. This is where a big chunk of my discretionary spending goes and for me, a big deal. That my starting point. I know my job hours are guaranteed until March 6. If I find out more and if I see the need, I'll go to the next steps.

Since they made the announcement at work that there will be layoffs and cutbacks, folks at work have been in a speculative frenzy. Stirring the pot is a woman who corners everyone and bullies them into answering her questions so she can guess various outcomes. Worse, she then scares them by throwing out bits of information she has cobbled from various sources as though she really knows something or might influence the outcome. I'm clearly not fond of her approach, but she has managed to glean some verifiable information from management on severance, and number of positions likely to be available part/full time. 40 full timers are effected: 6 will be offered full time, 25 part time and the rest, out. I joked to her that I'm waiting to see her betting odds chart on the wall anytime now for likely outcomes. Her straightfaced response,"That's a great idea!" There's always someone, right?

One of my goals this year is to move out of my current job. I'm weighing the options of keeping my current job part time (17 hours as a contractor, no benefits) while I look for something else. Or taking a modest severance package (10 weeks of my current full time pay plus UE eligibility) and getting out sooner.
It basically comes down to the security of having a job I know vs the unknown.

Can you stay until the position closes? Can they start the severance package after you are permamently laid-off. I wouldn't leave until the lay-off date and am eligible for the severance package. In my state once your laid-off you don't have to wait for the severance package to expire in order to apply for Unemployment Benefits.

In a critical lapse of judgement, while alone with my mother in law earlier in the week I mentioned the aforementioned layoffs. Her initial remarks were along the lines of how we'll really have to start learning how not to waste so much of our money. Eh, did I expect any different from a recession era child? Did it help that I brought lobster to her house for dinner last night? I'm an idiot. I'm laughing because you can imagine how that opened the floodgates for commentary last night. Lest anyone think I'm completely bonkers, I mentioned lobster was going on sale this week and she asked me to buy one for her.

Waste money!? Does she know you paid off your mortgage early??

Well, it's all relative, I suppose. What seems acceptable during the Great Recession might seem wasteful to a child of the Great Depression...

March 5 is my last day of work. For now we can live off husband's salary and have benefits through him. 10 weeks severance, plus eligibility for unemployment benefits gives me some looking around time. Having a few more weeks at work where most of the people you've worked with for a decade are leaving is weird. Lots of conversation at work, hard to stay focused on the work.
The essential goals remain the same: save to eventually replace our cars, roof, fund retirement, preserve/add to our emergency fund. I keep thinking about that as I go forward.
I have two weeks left, which makes me feel like I have an expiration date stamped on my forehead as in employed looking for work vs unemployed looking for work. I haven't applied for anything else yet.

Replacing my current job at the same level of pay/ benefits isn't likely and pay wasn't that great to begin with, so I need to gear up for a different field. Mostly I'm trying to stay positive and keep doing the basics: stay busy,exersize, eat well, update my resume, network while I figure out what to do next.

That's a big step to take the severance. Do you want to work in a different type of field, or were you sick of not having benefits, so you are leaving?

Good luck in your job search. Sounds like your plan is in place.