I have spent many an NYE doing nothing but driving around chasing a good time. I have a very bad sinking feeling that is what I am going to be doing tonight.

I just bought a new t-shirt that’s purple with sparkles for $20. I love a good post-Christms clearance sale. I am rocking two new hair ornaments that compliment the purple in that club kid/fab way, only $10 for the pair. I could wear them out tonight to a party or not bother and stay home with a half split of champagne and get a good night’s sleep. Either way, I have a bad feeling that tonight will not be super memorable, short of it being the first NYE with my boyfriend.

Agenda is to eat a late lunch soon, buy some groceries and cook dinner tonight while finalizing plans with our friends. We could be in Baltimore all night, DC at a gay bar just lounging, or chasing the groove at a few lame raves around town. Honestly, I look forward most to lunch and cooking a yummy dinner. Did I tell you guys yet that I am food-motivated? (Thankfully with good genes/metabolism that it doesn’t show how much food loves me back.)

I have a feeling that I am going to need to find an ATM and pull out $100 for the night. When it’s gone, it’s gone. But I hope there is some left for lunch money the rest of the week. It’s the best I can hope for for tonight. How lame is that?

SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Bound

Goal #1
Specific - Contribute to my 401k plan
Measurable - X% of my total salary
Achievable - With each paycheck
Relevant - Yes. Because it will help my retirement funds grow
Time-Bound - All of 2008

I will not get a corporate match for my first 12 months, but my new company will match 100% of the first Y% of my salary, so there are some extra benefits to doing this, but I won’t see them till 2009. That’s fine. Because of other goals, X=Y, i.e. I’m only putting in the minimum to get the match.

Goal #2
Specific - Reduce my credit card debt
Measurable - By 50% or $9,137 (rounded up to $10K)
Achievable - Monthly payments of $762
Relevant - Yes. Because it will help my net worth grow faster
Time-Bound - December 31, 2008

My NCN Network chart/Save-O-Meter number is $18,273 and I have not made much progress at all. In fact, I’m probably going over that when I finish tallying my December net worth numbers. What really burns me is that Tricia has paid off more debt that I have. I’m really proud of her, but dammit. I gotta get moving!

Goal #3
Specific - Reduce my credit card debt on my highest balance card ~$10K
Measurable - By 50%
Achievable - ~$450 a month
Relevant - Yes. Because it’s killing my credit score
Time-Bound - December 31, 2008

This leaves about $312 per month for my other credit cards. Though they have higher interest rates, the balance to available credit ratios are so low they aren’t detrimental to my credit score. I’m not buying anything any time soon, bu I would like to push my score higher for the heck of it. There is an implied goal here of breaking a FICO score of 720.

2008 is going to be very simple. Three goals and three goals only. I am focused on saving for retirement and reducing my credit card debt. That is all. Once I get going on these three things, I feel my larger goal of having nothing but my mortgage will come to me more easily in 2009.

I am exhausted from the morning gift orgy.

Two little babies got more than a lot from Santa, Mom, Dad, Auntie Mapgirl, Grandpas (2), Grandmas (3) and Companion (1). *sigh* Honestly, I am glad all I gave them was clothes. Dino jammies always rock.

The big winner toy that both the 2 year old and 7 month old liked was a Push n Go Crab. It plays music, wiggles its eyes and claws. Then it moves across the floor, sideways. It is a crab after all.

I hope everyone had some sort of happy holiday this season, whatever your proclivity is. (My that’s a very bland sentiment. Once more. WITH FEELING!)

HAVE A HAPPY HOLIDAY!

*WHEW*

That’s better.

Happy holidays everyone! A special happy birthday to my mommy as her birthday is Christmas Day. It’s a big deal to us because she gets screwed out of having an extra “Queen for a Day” day that everyone else gets. (But she doesn’t read my blog.)

At any rate, I will be leaving tonight for the holidays and I really hope everyone, regardless of their predilections, has a wonderful week next week. I am a little sad that there will be no snow in my holiday, but I will have wiggly worm nephews and many hugs and kisses, so it’ll be just fine.

I am remiss in commenting on blogs and collecting my favorite links for the week. I’ve been busy with year-end work and focused on my non-finance personal life.

The can’t miss links are these:

Madame X’s NY Stories. Real people. Real tales. If you want DC Stories, please email me with your preferred pseudonym, blog, and story. There are 4 stories so far, but there are many more New Yorkers out there so I suspect there are many more waiting in the wings.

BostonGal, always hip to the latest financial news, brings you changes to credit scores. Given how important this is, I am surprised more PF Bloggers haven’t written about it. Thanks BG for the article.

Again, Miss BostonGal highlights an article from the NYT asking the age old question, Is it OK to rent when home prices are too high? Read and decide for yourself based on your location, location, location.

Tricia at Blogging Away Debt has 7 sites where your clicks make a donation.

NCN asks PF Bloggers to spotlight their favorite charities. Click the trackback links to get to the reply posts.

Jim’s list of Medical FSA spend down items. A variation on mine, but hopefully it will generate some more ideas for you. (Mine was focused on less perishable items, i.e. non-medications.)

Frugal Duchess on writing down your goals.

Oh and as a final note about my last post about rich people because someone accuses me of being an apologist for capitalism, here’s a story about Chuck Feeney, a founder of Duty Free Shops and his philanthropy. I remember when the story broke about his wealth, or lack thereof. It made a strong impression on me that sometimes what matters most is the utility of things in our lives and not what it costs. (He work a plastic digital watch for many years.) While stuff can exist to be beautiful, what’s most important is its use. As much as I covet the Maserati I saw on I-66 this week, my Altima lovingly gets me to and fro for cheap.

N.B. I wrote this post ages ago. But the co-worker mentioned in the article still needles me with her attitude. Also, small disclaimer, I have a friend who is a Gates Scholar in the UK right now. I totally forgot that it might color my perception of the Gates Foundation. But she was really cool even before she got it.

Dunno if you can read this article about Vinod Kholsa’s efforts in microfinancing in India from the NYTimes, but there seems to always be this impression that the industrial tycoons of the modern age are all horrible people and they only give money out to burnish their image. [I personally think Vinod Khosla rocks. But then again, I think Sun Microsystems computers are pretty cool stuff and yes, this is an official endorsement of their products by Mapgirl. Watch their stock go pop right now on that endorsement. hahaha. SO NOT HAPPENING.]

I admit, guys like Ken Lay, Bernie Ebbers and Conrad Black don’t help. But I ran into an interesting attitude the other day. I’m not sure if it was about money or race or both. But an African-American woman at work was telling me she was getting all verklempt over the TV program about Oprah Winfrey’s new school project in South Africa. She should have stopped there but someone mentions Bill Gates and Warren Buffett’s charitable efforts and the woman starts saying something that was tantamount to ‘those two old white men don’t do anything for minorities.’ I found her attitude shocking. The co-worker who mentioned them and I started to tell her that rather than help 500 girls, the Gates Foundation was trying to help every single person in the world by creating new vaccines so they didn’t have to die of TB, malaria, cervical cancer or HIV. 500 or entire continents of people? Hm…. Sounds like both are worthy endeavors.

I would truly like to believe the PR spin all three celebrities have for their good works. I honestly think that they are doing great things with their wealth out of a genuine humanitarian concern for the world. I don’t think this is an Andrew Carnegie type operation that’s only about spin after the Homestead Riots. I think Oprah, Bill/Melinda, and Warren are the real deal.

I know there’s some bad apples in the barrel of the wealthy. But I don’t write off anyone who is willing to try and save the world. Even if he’s silly and wears sunglasses indoors all the time and his music is overproduced crap these days. Oops. Did I write that out loud?

Having money isn’t horrible. It what you do with it.

I will have 6 free exams surrounding my laser eye surgery appointment, and they’re all free.

This means three pre-operation exams at the laser surgeon’s office. Two for taking scans (I had to have an extra one because I don’t make enough tears and they gave me a tear therapy regime after which they took more scans.) and one right beforehand.

Then there are three others with my regular ophthalmologist. One is for dilation because she only does that every other year if they take a photograph of my eyeball. I hate dilation because you have wait around for a few hours for it to be ok to drive. Wouldn’t you know, I had my last one in 2006 and needed another one. There are two follow up exams post-operation. I am surprised the dilation exam was free because she put me through a full battery of tests and usually it’s $75.

So I am getting lots of extra eye care in preparation for surgery. One of my doctors had a great observation which is to have a free consultation before you even bother saving money for the surgery. He said he’s had patients wait 2-3 years to save money for it, only to find out that they can’t have it done. Just a thought.

I cannot wait for it. I have wanted this so badly for lots of reasons for many years. I only wish I had had the money sooner.

Max out the 401k or pay down debt? (It’s Dilemma #1 in that story)

For me, that’s been my struggle in deciding what to do about this dilemma in 2008. Because clearly, I put a lot of money into my 401k plan in 2007 and hardly paid down debt though I did a good job tackling the dental bills which my insurance declined to cover instead of creating more credit card debt.

So dear readers, I understand that I should both save and pay down debt because I can. Now my problem is that I want to know if I should max out the 401k or not. Matching is all well and good. Basically with matching, I can save 12% of my salary with the minimum contribution to get it. That’s easy. My problem is that to get a grip on all that credit card debt and still live without racking up more debt, should I max out at 20% at the beginning of the year and ease off to have lots of cash to pay off debts in the second half of the year? Hm. That’s a new strategy I hadn’t considered yet. *ponders*

Goal Plan A:
1. I could max out my 401k contribution at X%.
2. I could halve my credit card debt in 2008 with ~$750-800 a month in payments.

Goal Plan B:
1. I could put in the minimum to get corporate matching which would still save me about 12% of my salary annually.
2. I could put $1200 a month towards credit cards.
3. Build back my Emergency Fund to $4k.

*******

I simply hate budgeting. I only hate it because I can’t keep track of what I actually spend. Even if I pay for it all by credit card and download into Quicken, I still seem to lose track of stuff. I am trying as best I can to move simply to paying for stuff with cash or by debit card only. Budgeting, as a discipline doesn’t actually bother me. I think I make enough and realize how I frivolously spend money to know I can stop buying stuff and not feel deprived. Heck, I checked Quicken and in the last 3 months, I haven’t bought any yarn for me. I didn’t even notice it. (2007 Rhinebeck spending was either ‘Gifts Given’ or ‘Vacation’ budget line items in Quicken, and not ‘Crafting’. The handmade soaps I bought there went over well with my knitting group last night.)

Now, I have to wait till my 2008 paychecks start rolling in, but I think I can get all my monthly fixed expenditures down to one single paycheck. (I usually get two per month.) That means, I can divide the second check in two parts. About $600-700 more to credit cards, and the rest into my pocket to spend on everything else, the variable monthly expenses, savings, etc. so I don’t rack up more credit card debt. Is this a better budgeting path for me?

I dreamed that scenario up because I wanted to see how I could make Plan B work. I am having the absolute worst time figuring out what to do.

The only good thing is that all of this includes doing laser eye surgery as built-in cost for the year with Medical FSA funds. Without question, I have the money for it. My last dental crown will be about $1000, but I’ve decided to wait a tad longer so I can get my teeth whitened first.

I have been remiss with updating my blogroll. Plonkee Money is a fantastic UK-based PF blog. Plonkee is “brilliant”. She’s very smart and I was impressed that she’d just hop across the Atlantic just for a visit to the US. I’m not that adventurous I guess.

We had a great time at the international happy hour, her presence of course was what made it “international”.

There’s lots of good stuff in her blog. She runs thoughtful carnival themes and recently did a trip through her blogroll. (Of course I picked the M’s because it lists me! ME!)

I look forward to the book reviews she wants to do on books not widely available in the UK. I’m curious to hear her take on some of them as I feel they are very US-focused and I wonder what general actions can be gleaned from them which she can apply in the UK.

The last check for $766.50 to my oral surgeon left my hands this week. For a 41 lowly cents, the US Postal Service will take it to their offices in Gainesville, VA and I will call them next week to find out if they have posted the payment.

I made a photocopy of the check and will see if I can use that last payment to zero out my Medical FSA fund for the year. (I couldn’t buy enough bandages without looking ridiculous or getting ready to be a mummy for Halloween 2008.)

I still have one permanent crown to put in, but I would like to pay cash to have my teeth whitened and then put in the last crown. I’m looking at June 2008 as a possible target date for finishing up the work.

Either way, most of the costs have been handled, wrestled down to the ground, bopped on the head, and conquered!

BK is a new PF Blogger at Tryin to make a DOLLA outta FIFTEEN cents, one of the lovely DC area ladies who joined me and a few other ladies for a holiday brunch a few weeks ago. Thanks to SingleMa for bringing her into the fold! BK is a single mom who is kicking ass careerwise. She is smart and sassy. It was great to finally meet her in person.

Her posting is a little light lately since she’s started a new job, but hey, she’s a busy mom. I’m just amazed we could actually get her out and about for brunch.

Her debt graphs are going down quicker than mine. So follow along with her progress.

Thanks!