23 Comments

  1. I love the way you laid all of your goals out! This quarter, I would like to get back to saving aggressively for the tiny house. This goal has gone woefully by the way side as a number of unexpected expenses seemed to come at me one after another since Christmas. Here’s to hopefully no more surprises!

  2. Awesome progress Penny! I’m so impressed with your extra payments, we do about 100-300 each month but 5K extra principle, wow! And very smart to make sure Roth contributions keep pace. We maxed ours and felt the pinch Jan-Mar, but now the rest of the year has more breathing room. Cheering for you!

    • Thanks! That’s the total, so we’re only about $2,500 ahead for the quarter. I’m hoping next quarter will be close to $5k or more, though!

  3. Great progress Penny!

    I’m also trying to avoid disposable cups, luckily I don’t get coffee out all the time, but when I do, I cringe at my use of the cups.

    I understand everyone is different, but I don’t sweat mortgages. They enable the middle class to get on the property ladder, and I don’t view it as a millstone. I could technically pay off my mortgage, but will never do it as I can make more in the market.

    • It’s purely psychological. I know I can make more in the market, which is why we’ll always max out our Roths before getting more aggressive. But seriously paying over $1,000 for not a darn thing last quarter bums me out.

  4. Karen

    I pick up bottles, yes I do, I find them everywhere(!) and bring them home for the bottle deposit. I use my thermos for coffee I make at home and try try try to not use plastic and disposable cups and plastic bags anymore.
    I will continue to use Ibotta and Checkout51 as well as a survey app for my supermarket that pays me a teeeny bit to watch advertisements. Also will use my credit card this quarter for 5% back on grocery and gas (up to $25 for the quarter)
    UBER frugal April means super limited eating out-only one planned restaurant event this month and I’ve told everybody I’m sticking to it.
    The goal is to mega save for a trip to visit our daughter in South Africa this summer, it is gonna be pricey but so worth it.

    • You’re a genius to add that bit about credit cards, Karen! Discover is 5% for me this quarter for groceries. I just told my husband we have to remember to switch over from our BoA one. It adds up!

      South Africa will absolutely be worth it! That is the trip of a lifetime for sure 🙂

  5. I’m going to be working on reselling a lot of things and saving what money I can before I move this summer. I’ll be living on my own for the first time o: so I downsized partly to have less to move and partly because after all the reading I’ve been doing lately I’ve been thinking a lot more about what I want in regards to owning stuff, and saving money, and spending money.

    • That is awesome, Deanna! I hope you will post on your progress. Decluttering and reselling feel like such processes, but I’m so glad to be doing it.

  6. Last month I realized that my “aggressive” goal for paying down the mortgage was not even at all because I miscalculated how much we’d be paying in interest. The new goal isn’t that much more of a stretch just yet, we need to figure out how to cash flow multiple investments going into 2019 first! That’s probably our stretch right there – fully funding the 401k, two IRAs, half the 529, and keeping up with all the regular payments.

    Still keeping up with all our little earnings so I stay in practice for the bigger stuff: Swagbucks, the odd little freelance thing, banking all our cashback from sites and CCs.

  7. Vintage Gucci bags! Fancy!!

    Your mortgage number is actually quite beautiful! If someone was carrying a mortgage like that in Vancouver, they would be smiling every day lol. There are people with $1,000,000 mortgages here (I have a friend who has one).

    I like the idea of limiting disposable cups and bottles, that’s a great goal to shoot for- thank you for sharing the idea. I am guilty of using the disposable cups, I should bring my travel cup more often 🙁

    • Totally fancy! And bought at a garage sale from my parents’ neighbor. She’s worked in fashion her whole life. Oh, the castoffs!

      I didn’t really think about how problematic Starbucks cups were. I already felt guilty about water bottles and soda bottles. But when I realized that Starbucks cups are coated in plastic, it was a total head slap moment. I can do better!

    • It’s a slippery slope! I have become incredibly aware of the different kinds of packaging everything comes in. I’m trying hard to only either use a water bottle or travel mug or buy aluminum cans in bulk. But now the cans are even bothering me!

  8. Awesome progresss! My mortgage debt doesn’t bother me, up it’s probably because my interest payment is so low ($200/month).
    I rarely go out for coffee, but when I do I rarely bring a travel thermos, the baristas near me act all confused when I do….am I doing something wrong? Other than making sure it is clean are there any other rules?

    • That is my problem, too, Mrs. Kiwi! The second to last time, I brought my own mug (clean, thankyouvermuch! haha!). And they passed it back to the barista, who promptly poured my drink into a disposable cup. I asked for my mug back. He poured in my drink and threw out the cup. Womp womp.

  9. I constantly make crazy goals that I can’t reach and call it “success through failure”. If I tell myself to make $200 this month on ebay, and only make $160 I’ve technically failed. But it’s up $90 from my “comfortable” goal of $70.
    I haven’t tracked cups though… In general I want to do a waste reducing challenge and this seems like a nice way to start. I was thinking that I’m pretty good about this, and then I realized that everywhere that I get free tea/coffee I also tend to use a disposable mug. I’ll throw a mug in my bag and see what changes 🙂

  10. My goals this quarter are to continue paying down the non-student loan debt while also enjoying myself and my friends. Once I finish paying for all the dental stuff – I see you new retainer I’ll need after Invisalign – I need to then take care of new glasses. A bunch of small steps will get me where I’m going.

    I made a deal with myself this week that if I work on my new skill every day of a week, then I can buy an extra SP500 share. Hopefully that is the incentive to get me over this final hump and allow me to take a job in the skill.

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