Actions Over Words: 2018 Second Quarter Recap

It’s a funny thing: to write about the meaninglessness of words. On a blog. Using my words. But I stumbled upon a quote that seemed really profound. Essentially, our words are who we’d like to be, but our actions are who we are. I set some lofty goals for the second quarter of this year, and I thought I’d let my actions and the numbers behind them do most of the talking in this recap.

Q2 By the Numbers

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$137,327.21 remaining mortgage. That’s the remaining balance on our mortgage. I hate it. That’s all there is to say about that.

$9,487.27 toward our principal. We’re really starting to move the needle on the principal. We smashed our Q2 goal of sending $8,000 toward the principal, and that’s largely because we maxed out our Roths early this year.

$1670.89 to interest. I hate that we pay as much as we do in interest, but I can remember a time when it seemed like our payment went almost totally to interest. Because it did. Now, less than half goes to interest. Woohoo!

$3,800 toward retirement. Our goal was to finish contributing, and we did it! We didn’t make a ton of extra money this quarter; we just got a bunch of our own money back thanks to a tax refund. The best part about this was that all of the money we would normally put toward our Roth each month can go right to our mortgage. Or our taxable account. But let’s be real. We all know…it’s going to the mortgage.

$1165 to college. We put in just a teeny bit over our goal for HP’s 529. We increased the amount just a bit when we maxed out our Roths. More important, though, is that we are continuing the tradition of adding to his 529 when we would normally buy him something. For instance, I fell in love with a first Mother’s Day outfit. Cute as it was, I didn’t buy it. I had a lovely day anyway, and he ended up with an extra $15 in his account.

931,063 steps. I was 13,937 steps short on this goal. It’s really maddening to fail like this. It seems so close and so far away at the same time. Though, I suppose it’s mostly close. Especially considering the fact that last week, I knew I still needed a few hundred more steps before bed. I proceeded to march in place and climbed into bed 17 steps away from my daily goal. Why? Who knows. Well, I guess when you look at the fact that I’m still averaging 6 hours of sleep a night, that’s might explain it. Oof.

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6 single-use cups. I started off strong when it come to remembering a reusable cup, but then I got sloppy. I ended up using 6 one-time-use cups this quarter. As a result, I have basically decided to eliminate Starbucks from my routine all together. What used to be a sweet treat really turned into a bad habit. So I was off by 1 here, and I’m pretty bummed about it.

6 online sales. I failed here, too. I had originally set a goal for at least 10 online sales, and this category went all sorts of sideways. I’ve basically decided that I’m taking a break from Poshmark. Instead, I set my sights on OfferUp. That yielded a handful of sales in one week’s time. I’ll count them as online sales, even though they ended up as face-to-face handoffs. I also made a stop two consignment shops that pay (not a lot) of cash on the spot. All together, I made $161.20 reselling things this quarter, and it all went straight to my mortgage.

Quarter 3 Goals

$8000 to our mortgage principal. I’m actually scaling back from this quarter because…drum roll please…we are going to start investing in 403b accounts. We both finally figured out how to open accounts with really reasonable fees. As a result, we aren’t going to be quite as aggressive with our mortgage paydown until we get this under our belt.

950,000 steps. I know when I head back to school, I’ll be good to go for steps. What worries me is July. But go big or go home or something like that, right?

$1050 to HP’s 529. We are really trying to maintain a consistent amount this year because we want to see what is comfortable for the long-term in our budget. But maybe this number will be slightly higher since I won’t be buying him any outfits or trinkets for the 4th of July this year.

3 reusable cups. I’m really hoping this number will be zero, but I am trying to patient with myself. And go easy on the guilt. Don’t tell my mom.

Related Post: Guilt is Not the Antidote to Consumerism

10 sales or Freecycles. Since I just started experimenting with Freecycle, I’m going to count that. I’m hoping between Offerup and Freecycle, I can continue to move things out of my basement. Whether I get paid or not is now second priority to giving myself more breathing room. The clutter I have continued to allow to live rent-free in my house has been more taxing emotionally than I ever imagined. Expect a lot of spilling the beans on this coming up.

So Tell Me…What are your plans for this quarter? Are you better at setting aggressive goals than I am? What are your tricks?