About pages are always the weirdest, right? Well, for anyone reading, this is an actual (personal) personal finance blog written by me, Katie. 👋
I started my first personal finance blog more than ten years ago when I was in my mid-twenties and felt that it was a good way to keep me on track with my goals. Now, more than a decade later, and in my late 30s, I’m back.
My personal finances aren’t exactly exciting, but I have a few goals to work toward:
- Stop spending so much money on insignificant things. (Random stops at dollar stores, too much eating out, small piddly $10-$20 purchases that add up to hundreds of dollars per month.)
- Increase my emergency savings.
- Create a savings account for trips and fun things to do with my daughters.
- Save enough to pay for my daughter’s first year of college.
- Increase my income without substantially increasing the time I work.
My (Pretty Boring) Finances
I’m a freelance writer and editor who works for home improvement companies. Right now, I’m in my busiest season as a parent, so I only work about 15-20 hours per week between school drop-offs and pickups. I spend the rest of my time acting as a chauffeur to my three daughters, who are involved in many extracurricular activities. I know that many people criticize this type of thing for a mom, but I couldn’t care less.
My oldest daughters are in 8th and 9th grade, which means I have 3-4 more years before they head to college. (My youngest is only in first grade.) I will spend these next 3-4 years making a great family life as long as I’m able.
My husband has a state job with good benefits, and combined, we earn about $100k per year.
Our only debt is a mortgage and a camper payment.
We owe about $66,000 on our mortgage and $15,000 on our camper. Both have incredibly low-interest rates, so while paying them off early would be nice, it’s not a huge goal. Ideally, we’d just like to have the mortgage paid off before my husband retires, which we’re on track with as is.
Over the past few years, I’ve been pretty terrible at mapping out and sticking to a budget, which I hope to change soon. Stay tuned to see how it goes.