Focusing on what I want most.

http://frugalbabe.com/2010/03/10/focusing-on-what-we-want-most/

Inspired by the link above...

Focusing on what I want most.

My priorities
1) my daughters college degree
2) I would like to be debt free
3) I would like to own my own home in which I can retire mortgage free
4) Surrounded by my loving family who I love in return.

What I want vs what I want right now.

Right now I want to go back to bed. But That could cause me to loose sick time and take away from maternity time I am planning to take in October.It is important to me to have "bonding time with my new baby so I will stick it out here at work.

I recently had a conversation with my DD. She was making a stew out of everything going haywire in her life. I tried to help her refocus on only what was important to solve for today. I asked her how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Keep a smaller focus in order to truely achieve your dreams.

She understands but is often surrounded by girls who do not share the same long term perspective. She gets frustrated by the fact they want to be soccer moms and drive a mini van. While she is looking forward to her career. It is often still a choice, despite more equality in the workplace, to have children vs a career. I was often of the Mrs degree. I still think I would like to smack that 20 year old child in me and say you are going to have to work for the rest of your life. Make sure you like what you do. focus on the work part because the marriage and kids is the easy part. Sigh... I knew so little. Yet as life journey continues I like where I am in general. I have a few sources of discomfort I want to be debt free. It causes me a lot of stress. I want to live in my own home instead of paying rent forever. But when you pull back from the details of day to day living I am happy with my Husband and family. I am proud of my DD,and DS and look forward to a second DD on the way. Most days I think I am utterly insane for being pregnant again. But I know I want to have children around me for a long time. My husband wanted to be a dad so crazy as it is, it is done with love. Who knows how it will turn out but I too want to live until I am 90 and so I must act as if that will come to pass. And take steps to ensure it will take place.

Some days I get the money I wants. I want a higher paying career, I want my masters degree, I want the super-sized McMansion. None of those things is unreachable, I just need to make them a priority. Yet I tend to fall back to the simple top 4 listed above. The first is almost achieved. Once it is accomplished I will turn to debt and a home search in a more intense way. I let myself fantasize about the McMansion. If you don't enjoy a good daydream whats the use of envisioning something? But when I envision the details of the dream most of the time I see happy children running in the back yard while my husband and I enjoy a glass of wine with each other or with friends. The location is less important then the scene I paint. Perhaps it comes from my family home which was a large colonial in the suburbs. Where we live now is just costly. We could get a LOT more house for less if we lived in another part of the country. But my#1 choice is where my brother returned to last year in June. He has just become employed after one fill year of unemployment. The prospect is not appealing. We will stay where we are for a while longer.

CREATING THE NEW YEAR

Well its new years so I like many others feel compelled to create goals for myself. Of course its obvious to me my top three.

Here is what I am focused on:

1. Pay off 28,077.53 amount of debt, or this year about $9000.00. That equates to $750.00 per month. I am budgeting about $800.00 to debt but some of that is interest. So we’ll see how I do.
2. Lose 20 lbs
3. Learn to be a SharePoint developer/programmer

I am starting a new blog for #3. I think it helps to keep me on track and focused. I like blogging. Lets see if I can make a little additional income and get some referrals for technical work by putting it out there. I am not going to blog about #2 because from my observations people who are on a debt diet then start talking about a real diet never seem to come back to the debt blogging. And really getting out of debt is more important. It makes me feel like I have lost my friends when bloggers go away. I really am missing I've paid for this twice. She was really inspirational in my focus. Of course I also like NoCreditNeeded. But he blogs much less often and his journey is less about debt and more about skills after the debt. I need and want those skills but I need to remain focused on my own goals.

As I write this blog entry I received in email David Allen's productivity tips email. You can subscribe to it yourself here... http://www.davidco.com/productive_living.php

I Love how he re-frames New Year’s resolutions...

CREATING THE NEW YEAR
What would you like to be your biggest triumph in 2010?
What advice would you like to give yourself in 2010?
What is the major effort you are planning to improve your financial results in 2010?
What would you be most happy about completing in 2010?
What major indulgence are you willing to experience in 2010?
What would you most like to change about yourself in 2010?
What are you looking forward to learning in 2010?
What do you think your biggest risk will be in 2010?
What about your work, are you most committed to changing and improving in 2010?
What is one as yet undeveloped talent you are willing to explore in 2010?
What brings you the most joy and how are you going to do or have more of that in 2010?
Who or what, other than yourself, are you most committed to loving and serving in 2010?
What one word would you like to have as your theme in 2010?

So Here are my responses:

CREATING THE NEW YEAR

Love the positive language that I can create the year I want to have.

What would you like to be your biggest triumph in 2010?
Having baby #3 we are attempting it, but have not had success there yet. Second biggest triumph will be to get the debt back under control. For the last six months things have been a little (a lot) crazy.

What advice would you like to give yourself in 2010?
Have persistence in paying off your debt. Perseverance and diligence these are the skills that will accomplish getting rid of debt. Towards the end Oct, Nov and Dec stay focused on the goals instead of dithering away on auto pilot. Make allowances for the fact that it is a busy time and try to put away extra before the fall to compensate for the time you know you will have more demands on yourself.

What is the major effort you are planning to improve your financial results in 2010?
Increase my income, decrease expenses basic but HARD
Learn to be a SharePoint developer to increase my income.
We are giving up cable to decrease expenses further. And as I type this the thermostat is set to 65!

What would you be most happy about completing in 2010?
I would like to read more books. I have not been able to focus my attention for long enough on any single book. I just look long enough to read the answer I need. I would like to learn the information in a textbook really commit it to my skill set.

What major indulgence are you willing to experience in 2010?
Ahhhh chocolate comes to mind. Then Cross-stitch, But also it is an indulgence to learn a new skill. To dedicate so much time (which I have little of) and focus (which I find harder and harder to obtain) is a luxury and therefore an indulgence. So I plan to dedicate 2 hours each week to reading about SharePoint development.

What would you most like to change about yourself in 2010?
The back sliding. I know it happens but I find it so frustrating. It is exactly these circumstances for which Dave Ramsey has you create an emergency fund in the first place. I have dipped into it a lot recently. I want to put back. (I will post more about this in a further blog)

What are you looking forward to learning in 2010?
SharePoint development
Better budgeting
Making a SharePoint Blog produce an income.

What do you think your biggest risk will be in 2010?
Having another child is a very expensive choice. But I am too old not to try to take action right away.

It is also a risk to learn programming. In two years will I be able to leave my job and take a contracting position to do development. I like security. We will see.

What about your work, are you most committed to changing and improving in 2010?
1) Learning tract for SP development
2) Be a better teacher
3) Working towards preparing my team at work for the next version of SharePoint that is coming out.
4) Encouraging users them not to be afraid of the new tools.

What is one as yet undeveloped talent you are willing to explore in 2010?
Undeveloped talent… My first thought is leadership. But what I really want to develop is the skill to lean something by reading and doing. I want to be a self learner. In the past I have learned very well by taking classes and reading blogs. Now I need to strengthen the ability to take what I read and turn it into a doing action. I need to retrain my brain.

What brings you the most joy and how are you going to do or have more of that in 2010?
Joy... My children, my husband and cross stitch. These are my biggest pleasures. I would like to spend more time with each of those things. I need to remember when I am spending time with each of those people how much I appreciate them for who they are and how much they support me and bring me happiness.

Who or what, other than yourself, are you most committed to loving and serving in 2010?
Family, my children, my husband, my brother, my parents.

What one word would you like to have as your theme in 2010?
Progress

So those are my answers, what are your goals? Feel free to comment.


I am not a financial professional. If you are looking for financial advise you should seek it elsewhere. If you would like to join me on the journey, walk with me for a while and be my friend......

Well, How did I get here?

I was reading my blogs today and I saw this on Boston Girl’s blog (http://www.bostongals.com/2009/05/ny-times-reporter-personal-credit.html) about an economist who got into big big debt. Well I too was a business major. And still I hung myself on the rope that the credit card banks gave me - paraphrased from this article
(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/magazine/17foreclosure-t.html?pagewanted=print)
So I thought I’d tell a little more of the story.

I looked back through all my posts and it turns out I try not to dwell on my mistakes of the past but I have focused on the future. I deem this to be a good thing. Yet I think how I got here is worth examining. Even reading back through some old posts I found evidence of my fuzzy logic that often times was the result of chaos elsewhere in my life. Thankfully I am much more grounded now.
As I read back my blog is more stream of consciousness not a book of how to get out of debt. I think that is the part of the journey that is personal. All I really want to do is get out of debt not to become a journalist. Here are a few posts that chronicle some of my journey…

Inspiration to begin:
http://travelfarandwide.blogspot.com/2007/03/change.html
http://travelfarandwide.blogspot.com/2007/03/confession.html

Some more of my journey:
http://travelfarandwide.blogspot.com/2008/07/economy-and-personal-finance.html

I have come a long way:
http://travelfarandwide.blogspot.com/2007/04/changing-times.html http://travelfarandwide.blogspot.com/2007/04/clutter.html

So those posts have some of the history of how the big debt got started, but I know the choice I made that really started the whole thing…

It is as clear as day the moment I first dug the hole. I had my first real job. I had just moved out of my Mom’s house, where I went to recover during my divorce. I was paid an okay salary not awesome, but enough to live on. I got a one bed room with den for myself and my daughter. We needed a TV cabinet. Well need is a matter of definition. I picked one out of the JCP catalog. It was adorable. I can still see the item in my mind. I was building my cozy nest. I wanted my DD to have a nice home. Never mind that I should have saved up for it and paid cash. That is never going to happen I told myself. I can’t save money. And I need to be clean and organized. I need the cabinet. So I ordered it from JC Penny’S and I was on my way to Credit Card debt. I made monthly payments. I don’t remember if they were over the minimum. I doubt it. I carried the cabinet board by board into the house because the box was too heavy for me to carry by myself. I put it together with my friend the power screw driver. It looked pretty nice. We had a living room.

Then the hole got a little bit deeper…

I remember getting the card offer in the mail. The card was Prime Option; they are no longer in business. 0% interest. What a good idea. I'll transfer the 22% interest JCP card over to this new card and after 6 months it will be only 12% interest. I can "afford" that I thought. But then I needed gas one day. So I put that on the card too, again and again and again.

Not related to Credit but related to income, I did some soul searching about why I was not happy where I was. I was alone in PA. My friends all lived elsewhere. I was an hour from my mom. Why was I still here? So I decided to move to NC. I did some research. I had taken a Microsoft course in computer networking. My brother was getting paid $50K to set up computers, I could do that I thought. (I still have yet to make the 50K salary mark!) I am going to move to NC and take some more classes and start over.
Well, the move was mostly all on credit cards. My dad did pay for the moving truck through his business. He even offered me a job, which I accepted. I took the position of Business Manager. Great at someone else’s money just not my own. Everything went on the card.

Because I thought of myself as middle class and sliding I had a certain amount of pride about what I could afford. I was maintaining a lifestyle that no one saw... Irony of ironies I am an introverted person. I have few social interactions with the parents of my daughter. Even at our church I was never approached by other parents. I bet they could not even tell you my name. And yet I was maintaining a three bedroom apt so I could have an "Office" for myself? How stupid was I? Don’t answer that I already know.

Then the denial or magical thinking really began. Credit card bingo. It is a sign that you are in trouble with debt that you shuffle balances from card to card. I looked at it as a good money manager to keep transferring money around so that you can take advantage of offers.

In business school your studies are all about the analysis of others behavior. It is never a focus on you. It is not discussed to gain an edge by never taking out a car loan, or not having to pay credit card interest. It is implied but not explicit. The thing about that is you get cocky. I was really really good at floating money from month to month. I took that as skill at manipulating the interest rates not a sign that I would have t o pay that money back some day.

Then more magical thinking I had some money in an investment. It was equal to the amount on my cards... So I could pay them off at any time right? (or so I told myself) But I didn’t want to. And I kept thinking my career will pick up any time. I will get a job that will pay off all my bills. I will magically have a big check to pay it all off. Getting out of debt takes step by step perseverance. I never had that. I learned it mostly when I met my husband. And slowly I have improved it my ability to focus and finish a task.

Now as I move forward It is even more important to get to the goal. To finish what I have started and to live my life debt free.