I was over at my favorite financial advice website, LearnVest, reading an article about this woman's quest for a perfect credit score and I realized... I just stopped my No Pants Dance updates when I got engaged. I mean, to be honest, I was a little bit distracted by my handsome fiancé and our wedding and then our honeymoon and now our adorable puppy BUT that is no excuse.Let's start with a recap. I decided to do the No Pants Dance in May of last year. Read about that here. Then I recapped June, my first full month of No Pants Dancing here. In the middle of month two, July, I wrote this. Then in August, month three, I wrote about our food growing expeditions and teaching my nephew to save and invest.Then I disappeared. Life got busy, the Jewish holidays came, and then... my Sweet Boyfriend proposed. :) My whole life changed, in the best possible way. All this to say... I got busy. So here is your update on the No Pants Dance.Refresher, the goals were:
- I will be out of credit card debt in 9 months
- I will have a significant amount in my retirement account by then
- Once I am out of CC debt, I will put that money towards my car, student loans, and savings
- I will put at least 30% of my income towards bills, loans, or savings every month
In the one year since I began this financial journey I have:
- Gotten myself out of credit card debt (with the help of my husband)
- Put the full amount my employer was matching towards my 401k last year (and so far this year) and transferred old 401ks that were sitting around and doing nothing into an IRA I can manage. I also put the full amount I could away in my new IRA.
- Taken the money saved from the credit card debt and put it towards our wedding. We paid for a significant amount of our wedding and that wiped out all the extra we were saving from not having to make those payments and more. However, we are putting more towards the car than the minimum payment required.
Since we now have two incomes, we are using my husband's for wedding bills and paying down debt and mine for monthly expenses. Again, with our wedding, everything is tight this year. So you could say we are still on a No Pants Dance. Since returning from our honeymoon, we are on a strict budget. No extraneous clothing expenses... no fancy dinners out... that was what the honeymoon was for! The goal is to pay off my car and his small amount of student loans PLUS most of my student loans that are borrowed at 6.5% in the next year. We will then put the rest to savings and tackling the rest of the debt (which at that point isn't much).Our new, fresh goals:
- Pay off car and 6.5% loans in 2014
- Pay off all debt by 2015
- Buy a house with at least 20% down in 2016
- Continue to max out IRA contributions every year
- Live a happy and debt free life
So there you go. My life has radically changed in the last 12 months. Where I used to feel overwhelmed by debt and finances, I am energized and excited about tackling this challenge. I am excited to help my husband build his business as a financial advisor and build our home together with our puppy and in the future, our children. And you know I will continue to coupon and check in with my No Pants Dance!P.S. anyone have any freelance needs? I am taking work to help pay down the debt! Contact me at taliashewrote @ gmail dot com :)