2013 Financial Goals

I've already admitted that I didn't track my spending well at all in 2012.  I have no idea how much money I ended up spending on groceries, clothes, or anything else for that matter.  I did track pretty well on Christmas, birthday and other special occasions, but I just have a fairly close grand total, not individual.  This year, I only plan on tracking groceries closely.  I figure I need to start slow so I will stick with it better. :)

What I do know about my spending last year is that it included several big, expensive expenditures.  For instance, we bought my husband a 1998 Toyota Tacoma in the fall.  We also spent about $4000 on a basement remodel (ripped out walls, put up new ones, replaced some old wiring, replaced the ceiling, etc), that we finally finished in November.  Then there was the new sleep number bed we bought in October, and paid almost $2500 for, by the time it was all said and done.  Add in a trip to Missouri, and a road trip to Washington (including stops in Spokane, Seattle, and right on the coast), and it was an expensive year.

Another Vacation?

We go on vacation every year, and have for a while now.  In my opinion it's important for our family.  I know not everyone agrees with me, but I think I personally need the time away from home to recharge, and spend more time enjoying my family.  Even when our vacations are just to my parents' house in Missouri, it helps us recharge and relax.   Plus of course, it's awesome to see family.  We live 1100 miles from "home" for both my husband and me, so we don't get to see our families nearly as often as we would like.  Elliott and I do manage to go home every year, and Carl is with us most of the time, but sometimes he's just not able to take the necessary time off from work.

This year, we were planning on just going home again.  We were  planning a trip to Kansas City for a few days.  Our parents live in the Springfield area, so Kansas City isn't that far away, but we had planned on spending 2 or 3 nights there anyway, so we could do more stuff.

However, my husband recently found out that he will almost certainly not be allowed to take any leave next summer (2014) if we are still here.  He will most likely either be sent to another base for a while, or will be left here, where they will be obviously short manned because so many will be elsewhere.  We were planning another Florida trip for next summer.  My son is really into Super Heroes and Lego blocks, so we were planning on doing Universal Orlando and LegoLand, while he still loves those things.  However, we have been talking over the idea of doing the Florida trip this year instead.  We normally have a pretty extravagant Christmas, and my whole family is on board with the idea of clearing out our Christmas savings account in late June for a July vacation to Florida.  We were also planning on buying a 3D TV within the next few weeks, and have decided instead, to put that money toward a Florida trip as well.  So if we can come up with another $500 by the end of March (about halfway between now and the trip), without cutting into debt repayment, or any of our other savings goals, it looks like the Florida trip might happen this summer!