Friday, February 1, 2008

My goals for Feb 2008 (because it's a short month, hopefully this will be easy)

1) Double my fast offerings. Alann told me a story last night about a couple that were on the point of bankruptcy who heard Spencer W Kimball’s promise to double their fast offerings and they would receive an increase in their household. (They turned into millionaires.) I tried to find President Kimball’s exact talk, but I couldn’t. I did however find an article from President Hinckley that mentioned that, as well as a few other very good pointers about life. It is called “Climbing out of debt” by President Hinckley, in the July 2002 Ensign. We already pay $10 a month in fast offerings. Theoretically, you should pay the cost of 2 meals. I have never actually done the math, $10 just seemed right. I just did the math, and assuming we spend $200 a month on food (we usually try to spend between $50 and $100 every 2 weeks), we are spending $7.14 a day. So $10 seems right. But this month, my goal is to spend $20 on my fast offering. It should be easy. I just got a raise. The hard part will be continuing on from here. But I have the faith. I trust the Lord. He has never steered me wrong.
(Hopefully, this link will point you in the right direction. If not, go to LDS.org, and search the title of the talk. )
http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=b8f876e6ffe0c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1
Also, check out "To the Boys and To the Men" by President Hinckley in Nov 1998. This is the talk that the previous link refers to. My, how prophetic it sounds now...
http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=cac5605ff590c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1
2) Don’t buy anything. Okay, don’t buy anything unnecessary, or more accurately, don’t buy anything that isn’t in the budget. As in, we can buy groceries, because oh my goodness we have NO food in the house, and it is a budgeted expense, but I will not buy anything from Wal-Mart, just because I am there. (I am actually thinking about returning some things that I know I want and will use but because it will help me out.) This is partly out of necessity (my spending is doing a dangerous upturn again) and partly because I REALLY want to pay off my debt. February is shaping up to be an awesome month. We both have third paychecks, we will hopefully at least know what our tax refund will be, one of my CD’s is maturing, and I am reading Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover. Oh, and I got a letter from the Post office yesterday saying that I have a check to pick up. I thought I got my last check, but apparently not. So I am way excited about that. I don’t have any idea how much it will be or anything. I thought I timed my quitting right so that I would get a full paycheck. So we are talking may $350 or $400. (Capital one, here I come!!)
3) Increasing the value of our home. We want to get an appraisal done at the beginning of March so that we can see if refinancing is even an option. So we need to clean up: add baseboards (maybe), trim and paint the kitchen, put the hood up, paint and clean up the bathroom. We want it to look pretty spiffy, so that even though all of the work isn’t done quite yet, it still looks good. I am totally committed to doing the work. And luckily, we have most of the stuff already, so it won’t go against my previous two goals. The only thing we need to buy is paint for the kitchen. I am pretty sure we already have bathroom paint.
Wish me luck!

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