What would be a personal finance blog if it did not include a posting about New Year’s resolutions? While I am going to make several resolutions this year, I am only going to have one per segment of my life. Only making one resolution may actually help me focus on it and keep it this year.
Last year, I vowed to stop using credit cards, and I was successful in that resolution. I did not add one single dime to my credit card balances last year. I used to have about $30,000 credit card debt after college, and I have whittled it down to less than $2,000 over the past five years.
This year, my resolution is to fully fund my emergency fund for three months of expenses or $10,000 in my case. Currently, my wife and I only have about $2,500 in emergency savings stashed away in a money market fund. We just used $1,000 to pay for car repairs with cash, which was great! In the past, I would have put it all on a credit card out of desperation. I cannot even remember what half of the original $30,000 was spent on. Now, I just loan the money to myself from my emergency fund, but I know that I do not have enough saved.
2009 New Year’s Resolution – Fully Fund Emergency Fund ($10,000)
Are you making any financial New Year’s Resolutions this year? What are they?
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