Had my yeary evaluation at work today. Those things always make me nervous even though i've always done well.
They pretty much said all the same basic things that they always say except for the first time in 10 years I only got a "Meets" as opposed to the "Exceeds".
I'm feeling a little down and disappointed. I know I deserve the exceeds just as much as I ever have. At the same time I really expected this eval
to be bad. Maybe even worse than it actually did go. Partly cause of the economy and partly cause my current manager has some kind of personal issues with me. So my raise at the end of February will be 40 cents. I think I would have got 60 cents with the exceeds.
It could have been worse I suppose.

Had to go to the BMV and get new license plates and a new drivers license card today. It cost $79.50. The good thing is I basically budget the amount over the course of the entire year so it was kinda like I really didn't spend anything.
My friend went with me and couldn't believe that I really budgeted all year to pay for stuff like that. He said "ohh but you don't really do that?????" and was incredibly shocked when I said yes I do.
He drives me crazy cause he is un-imployed right now and has no idea of how to budget at all. He always says how smart I am about money and such. But then he gets defensive and says I'm cheap and that he refuses to live poorly and that sort of thing. He told me he doesn't have enough money to buy anything at all for the next couple of weeks yet he went to the movies with me yesterday and today he spent about 8 bucks on pillowcases. I gave up a long time ago trying to help him understand some of his money troubles. But it still drives me crazy!


Ohhh one last note. The movie I saw was "Underworld, Rise of the Lycans" It was free for me cause I got a free ticket with my regal card from the last time I went to a movie. The movie was very good if you like vampires and such like I do. My only real gripe with the movie is that they filmed it as though the camera was glued to the actors. I kept saying to myself (to thE director)hey why don't you pull that camera back a bit so I can see whats going on. LOL.

McDonalds sent everyone around here a coupon for one of their MC-cafe things.
So I got a free Latte on my way to work. When I got to work they had free donuts so
I guess I did pretty good. I really don't drink coffee normally, but every once in awhile I like a cappacino or some kind of fancy flavored coffee.

I also found a quarter today. Recently I started putting any money I find into a special piggy bank. Its kind of my version of the $20 challenge. So far I have about 75 cents in it. I usually find quite a bit of money but haven't found as much lately. I think people are holding onto their money tighter these days.

Cashed paycheck today and made a little more progress on my goals. I could do better if I worked a normal 40 hours a week or God forbid a little overtime. But things are slow at work and I'm very lucky
if I can get about 38 hours a week.

Anyways, put $60 towards my extra mortgage payment. I think I'm about $40 ahead of what I need for this month on that one cause I'm only actually paying $100 extra a month right now no matter how much I can save over that.

And I paid myself back another $50 for the car repairs so now I'm down to $214 I still owe myself.

I only work less than 36 hours this week so the next paycheck (which I get paid every 2 weeks) wont get me too far on my goals either but I am making baby
steps forward. At least I am completely debt free other than my mortgage and regular utility bills. And I plan on having my mortgage paid off in less than 3 years from now. Can't wait for that!

Just thought some of you may be interested in this website. Its a government site that you can encourage what things you want Obama to focus on during his office.

It ranges from things to help the economy to high speed trains, to UFO disclosure. Soon the most popular ideas will be put into a book that the Obama Whitehouse will see and hopefully use.

{url}http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/{url}

I'm going to start posting updates on when I accomplish anything from my 2009 goals. I'm hoping this will help me stay focused and maybe do better than planned.
Also it will help me keep track of what I'm doing.

Today was payday and I did some calculating so I completed the goal of paying myself back the $70 for a car battery.
I also paid myself back $80 from the other car repairs I had. So now I still owe myself $264 for that.

I also put some money from my check ($50) towards the extra Principal on my house. That I'll just add up and send in when I pay my house payment of course. Basically I'm only sending in 100 extra per month but the more I can save towards that goal will help me through the leaner months ahead.

I was leaving a friend's house this evening and failed to notice it was freezing rain. I fell down the steps and hit the back of my head pretty hard. Fortunately my head is very hard and I'm ok. Then being a bit rattled and holding on to my car door not to fall down again I ended up locking myself out of my car while it was running. AAA came to my rescue so no serious harm done.
Man I haven't seen it so icy out in ages.
Maybe the blow to my head knocked some sense in to me. LOL. Not likely.
Anyways I decided to finally post my 2009
goals.

1) Pay myself back (into my checking account) the money I spent on some recent car repairs. The total is $344 but I've already paid myself a little of that back.

2) Also pay muself back for a car battery I had to buy. (about $70)

3)Add $400 to what I have in my E-Fund. That will put it over 2000 which is simply the best I can do for now. My eventual goal is still 12,000 for the EFund.

4) Hold off on all my smaller "funds" that I'm saving for just temporarily until I get the other more important things taken care of.

5)Continue saving for a total of $4000 to put in 2009 IRA. I'm not sure right now exactly whats in it but probably only half way there right now.

6) Put $4000 into 2009 IRA. Use money from regular savings to make up anu difference from goal number 5.

7) Start saving $3000 towards 2010 IRA.

8)Try to have my first ever yard sale around May.
9) Go camping and canoeing with my nephew and his son at least once. I will go camping in some way or another at least 3 times.

10)Try to take a real vacation this year that I wasn't able to do last year. Possibly Costa Rica around July or August.

11) Pay at least $100 extra on Mortage principal every month. I'm trying to pay off my house within nthe next 3 years.

12) keep using Quicken. I really didn't do as good with this one last year as I had hoped but I did improve on tracking my accounts and will continue to work on it.

Thats all of my goals for now. I plan on adding or tweaking them as I need to.


I feel I did good on my 2008 goals even though they were not as detailed as most of yours. I tried to be a little bit more specific this year.
I wish us all a great 2009.