Happy New Year!

I decided to spend the first morning of this new year reviewing and organizing our finances. I started by updating our spreadsheet, assessing all of our savings and loan accounts. Then I paid this months mortgage, which was fun because the site is down for mainteance. I almost had a heart attack.

My next step was checking out my credit. I use CreditKarma every other month or so to see how my Transunion score looks. I also took advantage of an annual credit report* from Experian. In September I checked Equifax and in May I'll check Transunion.

Everytime I look at a report it's like a trip down memory lane. I never got into credit card debt, but I did fall victim to the open a credit card for a free _______ (insert usless item here). There are accounts I remember opening and many more with low limits that make me wonder. Past addresses remind me of the family, roomates, schools, and jobs I've had along the way. This credit report also showed the payoff for my car. That made me smile.

I've gone back and forth about resolutions over the past few weeks. Our current financial plan makes things automatic. Short of an emergency or major life change we'll keep making a double payment on the car each month, we'll keep saving for short and long term needs and we'll keep paying our bills on time. So I guess my goal for the year is to stay on track financially. Stay on track and get once full month ahead on the bills. I'd like the money we're using to pay for any given bill to have come to us one month before.

The thing I most want is for 2010 to be better than 2009. For me, for my husband, for our friends and our family. 2009 seemed to have more than its fair share of angst, trauma, and woes for us all.

* You can check a report from each of the 3 agencies once every 12 months.