One year ago, I listed my goals for 2008. Here’s a review of my list from last year.

1. Pay off all Credit card debt - Failed! We paid off about half the total for the year. We could have done better, but there were too many times during the year that we slacked off on the budget and just spent more money than we needed to on unnecessary things.
2. Get body fat percentage under 25% - Massive failure! My weight loss efforts for the year turned into a rather sad joke. In the first few months of the year, I was down about 20 pounds. I finished the year up about 13 pounds. Absolutely horrible. Losing weight and making exercise a habit is my primary goal for 2009.
3. Increase our emergency fund to $5,000 - Pass. I decided this was too much to save for now while still paying off the debt. I have increased the cash float in my primary checking account, which helps make budgeting easier and can serve as an emergency fund if needed.
4. Earn $20,000 (gross) from side businesses - Not bad. I didn’t make it to $20,000, but if I include the ’selling stuff’ category (ebay, yard sales, etc) I got a little over 3/4 of the way there. I don’t have any new side business lined up yet, but I’m going to really work a lot harder at this in 2009 and try for $20,000 again.
5. Start a Roth IRA with at least $1,000 - Partial success. I started a Roth IRA, but only funded it with about $500. Again, I decided to hold off until more debt was paid.
6. Buy life insurance - Mostly done. We added some life insurance, but not as much as we would like yet.
7. Write a will - Fail! No excuse for this, we need to get this done in 2009.

I’ll be posting my 2009 goals soon. I’m going to try to keep the list shorter this year and try to get back on track with regular reviews so I don’t get complacent and lose track of what I want to accomplish this year. I hope you did a lot better on your 2008 goals than I did!

This is a great way to start off the New Year! As of the end of December our total credit card debt is finally under $10,000 ($9,776.07 as I write this). The balance has been just over $10,000 for about 2 months now, but I have slowed down payments recently as we may be facing some uncertainty with jobs and other things.

One of my goals for 2008 was to pay off all the credit card debt. We didn’t accomplish that, but I knew it was a rather lofty goal and not hitting it isn’t so bad. The good news is that we paid off $8,728 and eliminated two of the four original credit cards—including the highest interest rate card (was about 11%). Our remaining two cards are both locked in at under 5% interest.

One of my goals again for this year will be to eliminate the credit cards entirely. We’ll have to come up with a little more money than we did last year, but with more hard work and a more intense focus on frugality I know we can do it.

I just finished reading Common Sense Economics: What Everyone Should Know About Wealth and Prosperity. This book is an introduction to the key fundamentals of Economics, as well as a bit of Personal Finance. It’s a relatively small book too, one you can easily read in a day.

Common Sense Economics is a great book to read if you are new to Economics, haven’t studied Economics for a long time, or if you are currently clueless about your money and/or the Economy.

This book is divided into three parts. The first two deal with Economics and Government. The last part deals with Personal Finance. The inclusion of the Personal Finance part can either make this book the perfect fit for you or it may leave you wanting more. If your personal financial life is already under control, you won’t gain anything from this third part. If you have yet to take control of that part of your life, this chapter provides you an excellent outline for how to get started.

Some highlights from the book:

The reality of life on our planet is that productive resources are limited, while the human desire for goods and services is virtually unlimited. Because there is “no free lunch,” we must sacrifice something we value in order to get something else.

Politicians often speak of “free education,” “free medical care,” or “free housing.” This terminology is deceptive. These things are not free. Scarce resources are required to produce each of them. Governments may be able to shift costs, but they cannot avoid them.

Nearly all choices are made at the margin. That means that they almost always involve additions to, or subtractions from, current conditions, rather than “all-or-nothing” decisions. The word “additional” is a substitute for “marginal.” We don’t make “all-or-nothing” decisions, such as choosing between eating or wearing clothes—dining in the nude so that we can afford food.

The foundation of trade is mutual gain. The motivation for trade is summed up in the statement: “If you do something good for me, I will do something good for you.” Trade is productive because it permits each of the trading partners to get more of what he or she wants.

An increase in government transfers will reduce the incentive of both the taxpayer-donor and the transfer recipient to earn income. Economic growth will thereby be retarded.

Competition for transfers will erode most of the long-term gain of the intended beneficiaries.

Programs that protect potential recipients against adversity arising from their imprudent decisions encourage them to make choices that increase the likelihood of the adversity.

Providing others with goods and services that are highly valued compared to their cost is the key to financial success.

I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it. I borrowed it from the library, but I intend to purchase my own copy soon. Both for future reference and so I can loan it to friends. It makes for a great Economics primer and the section on Governments’ role in Economics is excellent…and quite timely given the current insanity in our nation’s bailout-addicted political climate.

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas. We had a great time hosting Christmas dinner at our house for the second year in the row. Lots of food, lots of family, and not a lot of gifts—just how it should be. We used the weak Economy as an excuse not to exchange gifts with just about everyone we know. That made Christmas a lot less stressful and a lot less expensive.

This week, I participated in the Carnival of Personal Finance and the Carnival of Debt Reduction. Many thanks to Saving to Invest and Destroy Debt for hosting the blog carnivals this week.

I haven’t read many blogs over the past week and that will continue as I plan to be away from this blog and the Internet in general until about January 5th. That being said, I do have a couple of favorites from the past week.

Buy Now Pay Later [from Bonfire of the Brands] - a little anti-consumerism message is always important this time of year.

Fed Destined To Become World’s Largest Auto Dealership [from Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis] - the bailout madness is really going too far. Actually, it had gone too far months ago and now I guess we’re just in the laughable stage.

Happy New Year!

I’ve had enough of the big banks. My personal experience was with WellsFargo, but this story could just as easily apply to any of them. You might think that a 10-plus year relationship with one might cause it to care a little bit about you as a customer, but that is clearly not the case.

I guess I can understand why. After all, I was just one of the millions of customers with a few bucks and an ATM card. There was nothing special about me. Except maybe that, at times in the past, I racked up some impressive Overdraft fees. You might think that would cause them to value me as a customer. Sadly, not even that was enough.

Like I said before, I banked with WellsFargo for more than a decade. Though I initially opened my account with a smaller, regional bank that WellsFargo aquired. WF never did anything spectacularly good or bad, but they were better than the other big bank I had used before (Bank of America) so I stuck with them. Over time, I grew less and less satisfied. Little things changed here and there that made me feel less like a customer and more like just another number.

The final straw came when I needed to call to check my balance one day. I only had to call to check my balance because my debit card wasn’t working at a store when I was trying to make a purchase. I knew I had plenty of money, so something must have been wrong, but I wanted to make sure.

To make a long story short…I had the money and the problem turned out to be something at the store and they were later able to process my transaction. All was well and I went on with my day. Until the next day…when I saw a $2.00 charge on my account for speaking to a banker on the phone- ridiculous! There is no way any business can justify this practice. I don’t care if it is ‘only’ $2.00 and I don’t care how much money they ‘lose’ by providing customer service. I am putting my money in their bank and I will not spend my money in order to talk to a person who works at the bank that is holding my money.

That was it for me and WellsFargo. I closed the account and opened a new one at a local credit union. My experience with the credit union has been a real pleasure. I can call them on the phone and actually talk to someone who works at the branch down the road. Crazy, I know…but it’s true. They even act like they are happy to talk to me. It’s an amazing difference and I strongly recommend you look into a local bank if you are at all unhappy with one of the big, national chains. There is simply no way the big chains can ever match the service of a good local bank. The only advantage I can see from a big bank is a large ATM network…but you can work around that. I’m happy with the change and I’ll never go back.

What do you think? Are there any good reasons to keep you money with a big bank?

First up for this week, I was fortunate enough to have my article on Simple Steps for a Cash Only Christmas chosen as an Editor’s Pick in this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance. Many thanks to Free From Broke for hosting this week’s carnival.

But enough about me, now for my other favorites from the past week.

10 Top Tips for Fighting Illness [from Get Fit Slowly] - These tips should be part of my regular lifestyle. I would put hand washing at the top though—I seem to get sick much less frequently now that I’ve become a little obsessed with washing my hands.
Household Uses For Vinegar, The Ultimate Frugal Solution [from Frugal Dad] - It’s amazing how much you can do with vinegar and how inexpensive it is.

A Crazy Retirement Plan? [from the Strump] - Clearly, there are many different ways to get to retirement. Just make sure you have a plan that is realistic for you.

Debt Elimination Tips: How To Reduce Debt With These Do’s and Don’ts [from The Diegerati Life] - Get out of debt tips from someone who has learned by doing.

Lastly, I leave you with some great financial wisdom—guaranteed to make you rich: (here’s the link in case the image doesn’t show up)

I recently discovered the Bonfire of the Brands website and book, thanks to the Good Consumer video I talked about a few days ago.

I really love the idea behind this site and I ordered the book. Below are a few excellent quotes (my titles in bold) from the website. I recommend taking more time to read it yourself—there is a lot of great content to be found.

The Basic Problem:

These are the facts: Chain stores dominate our high streets. Adverts dominate our media. And brands dominate our culture - to the extent that owning the right products defines what it is to be normal. For some people this isn’t an issue - they shop for pleasure, they love the big brands, and they feel comfortable being sold to all day. I’m not one of those people. Well, not anymore. I’ll give you three reasons why:

1. Non-essential consumption is a root cause of the situation we find ourselves in today - the environment, the economy and popular culture are all affected by the drive towards consumer growth.

2. Consumerism doesn’t work - in that it’s supposed to make us happy. Not in any sustainable way. Shopping is like a drug - the instant high is fantastic, but it’s never enough.

3. We’re starting to lose the choice. There are millions of consumer choices on the shelves. But alternatives to consumerism isn’t one of them. It’s virtually impossible to live brand-free and be normal.

Consumerism:

Buy Less Live More

If we don’t shift to a less consumerist and throwaway society, we’ll hit crisis after crisis, and it’s coming soon.

Think about it:

The Mark Of A Moron

It’s surely the mark of an individual to refuse to be branded. It’s daft to spend money on Nike clothes. The mark of a moron. Anyone who does so has been merely duped by the million-dollar marketing campaigns. To buy Nike shows a sheep-like nature and a lack of imagination and style.

Who in their right mind would want to be branded, like a cow? A brand identifies you as someone else’s property. It is the mark of a tamed and exploited animal. Brands promise freedom but they deliver the opposite: the worst kind of slavish conformity.