October Goals

October Goals

• Pay off Credit Card #8
• Save Money and Just Survive
• Research the Best Time of Year to Visit Our Top Locations
• Continue Decluttering
• List Some Stuff for Sale on Facebook
• Start a List of Christmas/Birthday Presents

I can’t believe I’m even typing this. After making our goal last month we’re feeling a little gutsy. We have decided to try to pay off credit card #8 this month. It has a current balance of $2,527.43. I want to throw up every time I look at that number. I can’t believe we are even considering doing this in one month. It’s completely insane. I’m not sure if we can do it but I think we need to set this crazy hard goal. Even if we don’t quite make it, we will still make a considerable impact by trying.

Our next goal goes with our first. We need to save as much money as possible in order to pay off that credit card. This month will simply be about surviving on the least amount of money possible. We are going to try to not buy anything that we don’t absolutely need. I am also planning to serve the cheapest meal options this month. I will be digging deep into the low-cost recipes that got us through being young parents.

I want to research the best times of the year to visit all of our top desired locations. This way we have a list made out to help guide us when we start to narrow down our travel plans. We have so many places we would love to visit. We plan to live where I take contract work in the United States and travel between contracts as we can afford. We want to make the most of our time off and conditions such as weather and holidays need to be considered.

I will be continuing my slow mission to declutter our home. We have a long way to go and this will likely be an ongoing monthly goal. We have a 4 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath house with 2 large storage areas in the basement, a master walk-in closet, and 2 car garage that were all full of stuff at the beginning of this year. The plan is to leave here in 2020 with the minimal amount of stuff we can. We are planning on renting a small storage unit to put our sentimental and non-replaceable stuff in while we travel. We would like to have a backpack/suitcase each for clothing, a couple of tech bags, a bag of toys for the kids, a bag of homeschooling items, purses/wallets, and a box or two of household items for when we are traveling in the United States. We are trying not to bring anything else into our home that is not absolutely necessary.

I plan to go through 1-3 boxes from the basement a week until it is all cleaned out and organized. I’m sure there are many things in those boxes that aren’t necessary since we haven’t opened most of them in years. Some of the stuff is sentimental. There are boxes of old photos and keepsakes amid the boxes of junk. I plan to scan all of our photos in the future so that we have a digital copy of them before we store them. I’m not there yet but it is something I am looking into.

I am currently getting out Isabella’s and Octavia’s fall/winter clothing. They share a room. The goal is for them to easily share a three drawer dresser, a small three drawer container (that’s in the closet), and a closet. I will share a post about this soon. We bought the girls a few items for back-to-school time (in last months post) and we are not planning to buy anything else this winter. After going through the tubs of packed clothing/shoes, their drawers, and closet, I think we are easily going to be able to make it through until spring with very minimal to no shopping.

As I am going through the basement and closets, I am going to try to sell some stuff online. I think I’m going to try to start by listing it on Facebook, either on my personal profile or a yard sale group. We are trying to pay off our debt and every little bit helps. We also have an excess of unneeded items and this makes getting rid of them easier. I have never done this before. I hope it is easy and goes well. We also plan to have a few yard sales before we leave.

I am also starting a list of needed or very wanted items to suggest for Christmas and birthday gifts for ourselves and our kids. I have brought the idea up to our kids and they are putting a lot of thought into it. We all know that we are planning to get rid of most of our possessions in less than two years. This really makes us consider what is worth spending money on.

It’s going to be quite a busy and frugal month. What are your goals this month?