New Year! New Goals!
2011 – A Year of Reevaluation
January 16, 2012Rearview Mirrors, Speed Limits and Pot Roasts…
January 18, 2012As you can see from yesterday’s post, I started 2011 with a pretty intense list of goals for the year. Throughout the next couple of months I plan to repost those 2011 goals here on my Live, Love, Write blog (originally posted on the Petit Fours and Hot Tamales blog). The following day, I’ll tell you how I did.
Since yesterday’s post was all about taking that HUGE step and trying to get out from under a very large portion of our debt, I’ll fill you in on our journey of selling the too-big-for-a-family-of-3 house.
I loved that house. Loved the layout. Loved the large rooms. Loved the kitchen. LOVED the office that looked out over the small flower beds in the front of the house.What I didn’t like was cleaning that house. I didn’t like that our son had three rooms all to himself (what else were we going to do with them?). I didn’t like that we were living pay-check to pay-check in order to make the large mortgage that came along with that house. Most weekends were spent at home because we couldn’t even afford a one-tank trip.
I’m really not whining. Life wasn’t unbearable. We were able to make all our bills on time. We just weren’t able to pay down debt we accumulated while both hubby and I were in school.
So, we listed the house in January. Bought some land that we intend to eventually build a new house on in February. And then we waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Then waited some more.
We were now making virtually TWO home payments. This caused even more stress.
The journey to actually selling the house was a long and eye-opening process that I plan to turn into a blog series later in the year. Suffice it to say, we learned a LOT about selling a home.
The good news is that we eventually did sell the house. In December…
That’s a very long time to wonder if you’ve made the right decision. I promise you that we spent quite a bit of time reevaluating whether or not this was going to work.
In the end, selling has already paid off big time. Yes, we live in a small single wide trailer. We’ve decided this is more than adequate for our small family until we’ve cut down our debt. Then we will consider looking into building.
In December we were able to pay off the first credit card AND THEN WE CUT IT UP. We still have a long road ahead of us, but the benefits have far outweighed what we thought were going to be some pretty heavy sacrifices.
Come back tomorrow and I’ll lay out my new goals for 2012. I decided to continue on with the decisions my family made in 2011 and see how much further I could take them.
How about you? Did you accomplish any of the goals you set out to do for 2011? If not, did you reset them for 2012? Someone recently told me that if I don’t accomplish something within the time-limit I set for myself, then I could always Re-Do the time-limit. I think I’ve got a few of those I need to reset.
2 Comments
It sounds like you have made some very positive changes, Tami. Good for you! Cutting up that credit card must have felt great. I am working on a few of those myself. Here’s to even greater success in 2012~
Thanks Pam!!!!! I think you will do great. I’m wishing for you an awesome year.
Tami