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I am not a fan of hot dogs.  But you wouldn’t know it if you ate here last week.  We had corn dogs one night and beanie weenies another.  I’m pretty sure kids ate quick hot dogs on their way out the door to a game on other nights.  And more than one concession stand dog was consumed.

What can I say?  It’s baseball season!  This isn’t a way I want to eat long term.  But if it keeps us out of the fast food lane, I’m all for it!  We made a “quick stop” for some food after a crazy night once this month, and for ONLY fries and drinks we paid $20.

That’s crazy.

So we’ll exist on hot dogs in the short term.  Soon, school will let out and life will calm down!  (Right?  Tell me it will happen soon!)

Our SMART Goals

Back in January we set our SMART goals for our family in 2017.  We also set our sights on finishing off our credit card debt.  We’ve been working on this debt since January of 2016, so we’re anxious to get it finished!  Let’s check in and see how it’s going.  And if you blog about your goals, be sure to link up!

Home

May is probably our busiest month of the year.  Between all the extra year end events at school, birthdays, Mother’s Day, and all the usual chaos of life, it’s tough to keep up!

I’m doing well to keep up with our usual household cleaning, so I probably won’t get to my extra goals this month.  But we’ll see!

Remove all items from each bedroom and start fresh.

In April I was able to get the walls cleaned.  My daughter had papers from preschool hung everywhere, so we pulled those down.  We did some more decluttering.  And I tackled some nagging repairs and cleaning jobs (like the pencil “artwork” my daughter put all over her walls…)

Clean out the basement.

Still hitting this in 15 minute chunks here and there.  Not as much work done here in April.

Still to go:

• Shelving in dining room corner  (I’d like to make this a closet, but we already have the shelving on hand.)
• Repair dining room ceiling

Family

• Take a beach vacation.
  • We’ve got the house and van rented.  I haven’t put as much planning into this as I should, but that will definitely happen in May!
• Continue to practice swimming.  Waiting for warm weather.
• Two hiking/fishing/camping trips for every warm month.  We got some hiking in!
• One on one time for each child, every month.
  • Most of our one on one time is coming in the form of baseball practice and running errands.

Marriage

• 12 Dates in 2017.
  • January: Went to see Garth Brooks.  If you ever get the chance to see him in concert, DO IT!  This was our Christmas gift to one another.  
  • February: We hired a babysitter and went out for a meal and grown up conversation.  (Two dates this early in the year is probably a record for us!)
  • March: We had a sad road trip for a family funeral.  But it did give us an overnight alone together, which was so refreshing!  No noise, to do lists, or distractions made for a good rest.
  • April.  No dates this month.  Sad trombone.

Personal

• Yoga & movement.  I can’t figure out how to get excited about doing this.  I’m so busy!
• Read On Writing.  I’ll tackle that this summer.
• Read through the New Testament.  Still chugging along!

#PressOn and Knock Out Debt

I guess there’s something about knocking out a big credit card debt that makes you feel like you can do anything.  We really hit the second card hard this month!

The Goal

Credit card #2 is much smaller than the first one.  Our goal was to pay 17% of the balance each month.  But this month I discovered that I was 3 months ahead on our mortgage payment.  I like to be ahead, but staying 3 months ahead when we had more pressing goals to hit first seems silly.

So I skipped this mortgage payment and sent that money to the credit card instead.  I was also able to find other bits and pieces of cash to send their way.  And by the end of April, we’d taken the card down by 45%!  Way ahead of our goal!

I’m so anxious to keep up this progress, but unfortunately we won’t be able to hit it as hard in May. I plan to save up most of our extra money for our vacation coming up in June.  This is ok by my family rules, because…

• We will be paying cash only for the trip.
• It’s only going to delay our payoff by one month.
• I don’t mind staying in debt for one extra month to build memories with my extended family!

I think I’ll come back from this trip refreshed and ready to tackle everything again!

The Plan for May

Like I said, most of our May money will go in an envelope for vacation.  When we’ve got enough saved up there I’ll go back to throwing things at our debt.

I’ve spent most of 2017 trying to build up my blog traffic.  Now I’m ready to work on monetizing again.  So I’m hoping to use that cash to pay down our debt, too.  (Remember, any time you click on a link through Medium Sized Family it gives us a small amount of income without raising the price of your purchase!)

And I’ll continue to write about ways we’re paying off debt and saving money here on the blog.  I love the accountability I get from it!

Bloggers, Link Up Your Goals!

If you blog monthly check ins with your goals, be sure to link them up here!  And tweet about it so we can invite others to join us, too.

[Tweet “Link Up Your Goal Accountability Posts! #allbloggers”]

We’re ready to tackle more goals in May!  How about you?

Now I’m off to cook up a delicious meal of brats.  Just kidding… it’s hot dogs.

Are you still reaching for your goals?