31 Days To Fix Your Finances, Day 7

31 Days To Fix Your Finances, Day 7: Work For Your Dreams, Not Your Money

Forgive me - I'm really tired tonight. We had some amazingly strong south winds last night and they kept me awake. I would never have survived on the plains in the pioneer days - strong winds make me restless and irritable. And I awoke today with a scratchy throat and not much voice (a smooth, mellow voice though, it's not unpleasant to my ear), I'm wondering what kind of pollutants blew in on the wind - so much agriculture to the south and then Mexico beyond with its American factories that moved there so they wouldn't have to worry about cleaning up their pollutants.

That said, on with the exercise. Okay, this one is confusing for me in my sleep deprived state. So, I'll take it step by step:

1) list your ten goals
1) To work full time as a naturalist in a state or national park.
2) To provide financial and emotional support to my boys as they complete their college education.
3) To find a meaningful and effective organization to work with as a volunteer and donor to work to achieve social justice.
4) To maintain and healthy and active lifestyle including hiking and biking regularly.
5) To be financially independent and only work when and where we want.
6) Complete the Texas Master Naturalist course.
7) Complete Certified Arborist certification.
8) Start a 529 plan for each of the boys.
9) Continue to eat healthful and organic foods and lose this extra 20 pounds.
10) Grow a garden to provide at least 50% of our vegetables this year.

2) Under these goals, make a list of each of your debts as well
Car - $182.69
Student Loan - $10,425.96
House - $64,684.95
CC (0%) - $615.94

3) add one last item: living expenses
$3500/month (average includes car payment, etc)

4) At the very bottom, write TOTAL and then over on the far right, write the total amount of hours you work in a week
Total - 82 hours

5) First thing, until you’re sure how your life will be rebalanced, include 60% of the total hours under the item “living expenses.”
Living Expenses - 49.2

6) If you have debts, you should spend 25% of your hours on paying off the debts. Note that this is extra debt payments; your basic minimum debt payments are included in the living expenses. When (or if) you have no debts, all of the time going into your debts can go straight to your dreams.
20.5 hours

7) The remaining 15% should be assigned in equal pieces to your dreams.
12.3 hours - total 1.23 each

I'm thinking this is not going to go so well in the next few days. Our living expenses are going to be more than the 60%.