A new year brings new challenges, goals, resolutions and lots of reflection. We always use the new year to re-evaluate our finances, and decide of we need to take any new financial steps toward our big, hairy goals.
Financial Steps We’re Taking This Year
This year is no different. The only big change is what we’ve decided to focus on for the next 12 months, and the financial steps we’re taking to solidify that focus.
Building Credit
If you’re new to this website, this declaration may not shock you. If you’ve been around for a while, this will floor you. Credit? But, you’re a Dave Ramsey girl! We don’t do credit! Well, that’s true. But, I’m also an African-American woman. Good credit is necessary for me.
Debt is bad, though. I’m not talking about debt. Being a homeowner has helped my credit, and I want to work on building it up even more. Plus, it’s important to my husband that I have great credit for a number of reasons. This has been a 2 year long conversation between us, and I’m finally ready to do this.
Estate Planning
As parents, estate planning needed to be at the forefront as soon as we had our first child. But, because of debt and the recession, we focused on surviving instead. Now that we feel very stable, we want to deep dive into all of the estate planning steps we need to make.
I’m not talking about creating a will and power of attorney. We’ve done those things. I’m talking about the estate planning wealthy people do. It’s time to level up, and this is one of the items we need to tackle before we do.
Re-Evaluating Kids’ Commission
We practice a commission-based system in our house, where the kids are paid if they do the jobs they are assigned. They don’t get money just for being their sweet selves. You do the work, you get paid. You don’t do the work, you don’t get paid.
We’ve decided to re-evaluate the amount the kids will get when they do their jobs in the home. We now have a pre-schooler, tween and teen in the house, and the pay scale will have to be re-evaluated. We’ll also have to be strategic about their workload.
Increasing The Kids’ Workload
With the change in commission, we’re going to increase the kids’ workload in the house. Now that we’ve been in an actual house for 2 years, we have a grasp of what tasks need to be done to keep it tidy and functioning.
Many of those tasks can be done by little hands, not mom and dad. The kids will get an increased workload, and the little one will have a small list of weekly tasks to do. He’s been asking for jobs to do, and there are so many a 4 year old can actually take care of, so why not give him something to do?
Pay Off The Mortgage
Yes, you read that right. Our big, hairy goal for 2019 is to completely pay off our mortgage. We set a goal to completely pay it off 3 years after we purchased this house. We purchased it in October of 2016, so it’s time.
We’ve already started the steps we need to accomplish this, like my husband getting a job outside of the home and me dedicating my blog income to this goal, so I think we might be able to do this! If not this year, we’ll get it done very soon after. No 15 (or 30) year mortgage for us!
Wow paying off your mortgage in 3 years. I thought I was doing pretty well when I refinanced and went from 30 years to 15. You are in very different place than I am because your kids are younger. My daughter is a few years from going to college so I am saving furiously for that big expense. Good luck.
Thanks!