2009 Goals Review

With 2009 coming to an end, it's time to review how Chuck and I did against the goals we set for this year. Our goals were:

1. Pay off HELOC by June 30, 2009
2. Grow emergency fund to $8K by December 31, 2009
3. Lower mortgage principal balance by $6K this year

And how did we do?

1. We paid off our HELOC on 5/22/09. It was a month ahead of schedule and it was a huge relief to us.
   
2. Our emergency fund is currently just under $6400. We're shy of our $8000 goal. Boo! If I hadn't had to take that 10% pay cut May - December (resulting in over $3500 in lost income) then we would have made this goal. Or if Chuck hadn't lost his job and we could have put more into savings in December. Or if we hadn't purchased a new vehicle and made car payments instead of emergency fund deposits. Lots of things went into us not making this goal. I'm very happy to have as much saved as we do. It's comforting to know it's there. We'll be doing our best to grow it as much as we can given our current budget limitations.
3. We lowered our mortgage principal by over $6500 this year! That's thanks to all those overpayments throughout the year. With Chuck's job loss we're going back to paying the minimum due each month. Doing that alone, we should pay over $4500 to the principal again this year.

Overall, not too bad. Leave a comment to your 2009 goals recap so we can all see how you did!

Next post? Our 2010 goals!