Weird, but good!

Something was different today, and it took me most of the day to figure out what.

It was usually around the 22nd of the month that payment on my line of credit was due. And this month - for the first time in years! - I had no payment to make! Woohoo! It was strange and wonderful, and weird but good - oh, so good!

In case you haven't heard yet...

  I ' M   D E B T   F R E E ! ! !

 

#86 - Get out of debt

The last few years of paying off my debt has been a L-O-N-G journey and a hard journey. I am slightly ashamed to say that although I dug this hole of debt all by myself, I really wanted (and was half hoping, half expecting) someone else would get me out of it. Now that's mature thinking, isn't it?

Once I finally decided this was my mess to clean up and really leaned into it, I began to see my situation change. I am incredibly pleased to say I finished paying off my debt in 19 months!

Was it easy? Certainly not. Was it fun? Definitely not. Was it worth it? Oh yes!

I'M DEBT FREE!

2019 Goals!

I was introduced to Dave Ramsey's principles to get out of debt in January 2018. To keep motivated while paying down my debt, I often watch his clips on YouTube. Lately, I've seen several videos about setting goals - it's that time of year, you know.

Ramsey recommends creating goals for each of the following seven areas: physical (health, exercise, weight, achievements), intellectual (read, study, learn something new), career, social, financial, family/relationship (one example I heard was about putting the phone away when the family is all together), and spiritual goals.

The next step is to make them SMART goals. When goals aren't specific or measurable, they are only wishes. Do you want goals or are you happy to wish your days and year away?

While not exactly as shown in the image below, I've heard SMART goals described this way:

S - specific
M - measurable
A - attainable
R - relevant
T - timely

The written component is very important too. When goals are not written down (or shared), how do you keep yourself accountable?

So, with all that said, here are my 2019 SMART goals in each of the seven categories:

1. Physical - lose 20 pounds this year; run a 5K
2. Intellectual - read at least one non-fiction book each month
3. Career - research one career or field of study that interests me per month
4. Social - meet with one friend per month that I haven't caught up with in far too long
5. Financial - be completely out of debt by the end of June (six more months!)
6. Family/relationship - TBD
7. Spiritual - TBD

I haven't come up with any specific or measurable goals for two of my categories, but I'm not going to let that hold up my post. I'll plan to do an update at some point this year - maybe then I'll have something to add to these outstanding categories.

Time flies!

Wow, am I behind! The last year has absolutely flown by as I've been working full-time again.

Although I'm a month behind on making any kind of resolution, here is my goal: to get my blog caught up again.

Stay tuned and keep checking back to find new and catch-up blog posts. I promise it will be worth it.

2015 Vision Board

I've been thinking I should share a little something with you. Back in January I made up my first [what I'll call a] vision board. On it I included my verse for the year, some things I wanted to do, and a few things I was hoping might happen.

Truth be told, a lot of the things on my vision board aren't happening, or aren't happening the way I thought they would. But just like my '40 Things & More' list, if I didn't have it, I most certainly wouldn't be accomplishing much of anything. :)