January update

I plan to give an update on my 3 goals at the end of each month. Without further ado, my January report:

Goal 1: Cholesterol

I don't know what my level is, I will only get it checked in 3 months, but I do know that I've lost a few pounds and I have more energy. The weirdest thing is, the more I eat well, the more I want to eat well. I get cravings for apples instead of fries. How strange!

Goal 2: Lower my credit card debt

Well, I've set up 2 automatic payment schedules, 1 for each card. I will finish paying card 1 in August, at which time I will transfer the balance to card 2 and start reducing that one more agressively. I am making regular payments to card 2 as well, but much smaller ones, so right now, I'm looking at paying it off in 2010. Hopefully, once I transfer the other payments, it'll go faster.

Just as importantly, I have used my card once in the past few weeks and transferred the exact amount from my checking the same day.

I am being very, very frugal, so my cash flow is improving. Once I'm in the clear, I'll see if I can increase my payments a bit more.

Goal 3: decluttering

I'm falling behind on that one. I have decluttered a bit every week, but not nearly as much as I could/should have. Not 3 hours a week for sure. Gotta do some catching up here!

On another unrelated subject, my financial planner is not impressing me. She's recommending switching from buying equity funds to bond funds. Uh, aren't bond funds kind of high, right now? And stocks dirt cheap? Isn't it buy high sell low?

I think I need to ask more questions.