Money On My Mind

In my first post I said that I would be creating a financial goal as I am currently living paycheck to paycheck, yet I want to put my kids through college and I want to retire when I am fifty. Phew! I am going to have to be a major turn around.

I hardly no where to begin, but I know that I must begin. I have been doing some research for the last few days on various ways to achieve my goals. I will discuss these later, the first thing I need to do is establish some goals. So here are my goals for the next twelve months:

1. Create and maintain a zero-based budget for 30 days.
2. Evaluate zero-based budget for effectiveness, repeat if it works or try new strategy if it does not.
3. Increase my household income by $1,000 a month within six months.
4. Increase my household income by $3,000 a month within 12 months.
5. Pay off all hospital bills and outstanding bills within six months.
6. Pay off both cars within 12 months.
7. After cars are paid off allocate all money that was allocated to hospital bills and cars and invest in CDs for college savings.
8. Research effective saving and investment strategies and become familiar with retirement programs.

Now, to achieve these goals I have to create additional income. How am I going to do this? I took an idea from Steve Pavlina, you are looking at it. My blog. (Check out "How to make money from your blog.")I intend to give anyone interested in going through their own renaissance a look into my world as I experiment with the tools and suggestions from pd experts and enthusiasts. I intend to give the reader an honest account of my experience. And provide insight into why I found success or failure. It is my hope that people will appreciate and learn from my suggestions and hopefully I can establish some on-line relationships with others interested into transforming theirs lives.

For those interested in seeing people better themselves I ask for your help. Offer the occasional world of encouragement, send me links to ideas you think might be effective or that I ought to try, and help spread this blog. The bigger this grows the more time I will have to try new 30-day trials.

Speaking of 30-day trials. Last night my started creating a zero-based budget and are going to implement it starting April 1st. We ran out of time before 10:00 and we were getting a bit frustrated, so we decided to stick with the suggestions we found at "Getting Finances Done." If anyone is looking to start their own budget with their spouse I recommend reading, "3 keys to making your personal fiances work as a couple." We plan to finish it tonight and then I will make sure to update you throughout the month of April on how it goes.