Back to basics

So I need to focus (again) on being financially responsible. I know – in general I am. My car is paid off, I pay my credit cards off every month & my only debt is my house (which I’m refinancing down 1 full point and to a 20 year loan, which rocks).

But I am not a very good saver. And in the past year, I went through a lot of money for a variety of reasons that I’m not going to post on the interwebs. I had lunch with my friend Robert on Monday and he gave me some great advice and got me motivated. I had been mulling over that I needed to get it together again, but he definitely got me rolling.

I made sure that I’m maxing out my 401K (I was) and enrolled in the employee stock purchase program to max that out as well which will generate some extra revenue and I’m scaling back on my purchases. I have an impulse problem when it comes to purchases, in case you hadn’t noticed. I can justify all kinds of things and it seems ok cause I’m not in debt.

But I want to do better than not in debt – I want to have a big, solid chunk of cash set aside in case I need it or want it (but especially if I need it). So, I’m telling all of you – cause then it becomes more real because other people know I’m working on it.

(Oh, there is that little fact that I’m about to start renovating my kitchen, so going to have to figure out how to balance this all out in light of that. Should be interesting.)

So, here we go…