Our Financial Goals: Saving Money, Budgeting, Being Frugal

I work on financial goals almost daily. This might sound like a bit much to some, but for me it's rather perfect. It keeps me on track and keeps all of those important financial aspects of our dreams right in the forefront of my mind, which is definitely where I need them, to stay on track!

"Working on financial goals", to me, means one of many things. I might be making one of my many lists, reading a financial advice book (my personal faves are books about being frugal and tips to save/stretch money), working on our budget (something we seem to constantly be updating), paying or going through/lowering bills, internet searching frugal living, etc... I finally have a hang of this money thing, instead of it having a hang of me!

Our Top 10 Financial Goals

What are you saving for? What are your goals to get there? We all have something we want or need- a trip, a gadget, a car... Our personal dream is family world travel. We want to simplify life and see the world. We've come up with the following list to help us reach our goal.

1. Creating and sticking to a budget. We only sort of recently started watching what we spend, and somewhat recently setting budget amounts to follow for certain household categories each month. But, we are getting better at this- quickly! We still have room to grow here though.
2. Stop spending on frivolous junk we don't truly need. This has been easier than I thought, so far. Whenever I want to thrift shop (one of my past times), I remind myself why I don't need household items, decor, books, and other accumulated junk. We are planning to sell everything we own soon, to travel abroad for a year (maybe more if we are lucky). I'm trying to purge things, not gather them. I also make it an almost daily habit to get rid of things, so bringing more in would defeat all of the work I've been doing on purging. 
3. Payoff all consumer debt. We have a relatively small amount of credit card debt. While it's been as high as $5,000 in past years, we've kept it down to about $1,500-2,000 for the past couple of years. Now I'm not saying this is a good thing, but it's better than we were once doing. And now, we are doing even better- we've paid off all but 1 card, have a balance of about $800 total on that card, and have stopped spending on these cards entirely. We plan to have this paid off in a few months.
4. Be approved for, and start using credit cards with airline miles. For those of you who don't need airline miles, maybe consider a card that pays you to use it... Of course I mean while paying off the balance each month! We have only been mildly irresponsible with credit in the past, and that was before we sat down and figured out how we were paying almost triple for most purchased items on these cards, after what the credit card companies were charging us for interest when we carried a balance! We will no longer carry a credit balance with interest. NEVER. AGAIN. 
5. Cut our grocery bill way, WAY down. The exact number on what we've been spending on food is rather embarrassing. However, I will swallow my pride and share it in a future post when talking more about how you, too can cut your grocery budget in half (or less). I have some amazing tips up my sleeve to share that have worked wonders for us.
6. Save, Save, Save! This is the hardest, yet most fun part of it all for me! I love seeing money go into savings, which I know will be used for our future travels. It's the visual aspect for me, of this whole thing coming together. It keeps my spirits high knowing we are truly working toward this dream. The money, while I don't like to base my existence around it or anything, is an important part of this journey. As much as I wish we didn't need money, we need money. So seeing it accumulated in a savings account which is designated purely for our future family travels, makes me amazingly satisfied to know we are on the right track.
7. Simplify and cut down all bills/expenses as much as humanly possible. This has included so far for us: getting rid of 1 car (yep! We are a 1 car family! Never thought that would happen...), canceling cable TV, switching auto/renters insurance, asking utilities for credits for a couple of late payments we had, getting our own Internet modem so we can stop paying the $8 monthly modem lease fee, reducing garbage can size for a lower rate, and more. We are even considering breaking our lease here and moving somewhere much smaller/cheaper, if we can find a place that will be worth it financially. 
8. Work and bring in as much extra income as we can. I sell goods online through Facebook (local sales), craigslist, and ebay. I do a small amount of drop-shipping. I'm constantly buying/reselling for profit. I am also looking for a part time telecommuting job, but haven't scored on that front just yet. I stay at home with our son, and need to work specific hours, hopefully from home because we live so far from civilization.
9. Always be working toward being super frugal. We are getting creative with saving money and keeping ourselves entertained for little to no money. I have fun pinching pennies- it's like a strategic game for me. My Husband, not so much. But he deals ;) We know it's for the greater good of our family dream to travel.
10. Sell all of our stuff and get on the road! If we are on track as I think/hope we will be, we plan to hold a series of garage sales this coming 2014 summer and keep only what we NEED from end of summer (Sept) to when we plan to leave (Dec), and sell the remaining on Facebook/Craigslist. This plan may change, but for now it's what we are hoping for and striving toward.

There's more that I can add here, but these are our main financial priorities right now. I feel many useful posts coming on down the road, where I explain in detail how we've cut our costs SO MUCH. Just about anyone can do these things, and they all add up to huge financial changes and savings. A little sacrifice goes a long way!