Dear Santa,

I would like a Master’s degree for Christmas.  Thanks!

Love,
SP

I’m super excited to report I’ve finished all my work for school, and my evenings and weekends are now FREE!

Today I slept in, played with my blog (come see the new look if you are reading through RSS – still have some tweaks), then went shopping for an ugly festive sweater for our party tonight. We gave up after two thrift stores and are just wearing red and green.  We tried!

I’m currently sitting on the floor of my kitchen, watching my cookies closely.  I’m a weirdo.  Christmas music is playing, wine is ready to go, and… I’m finally feeling the Christmas spirit!  (Except what is this rain?!?!)

Finance wise, the sweaters were $5 for both, the food and wine probably $40.  I have been letting my budget be a low priority, but now I have no excuse.  Time to get back on track!

Look at me, I’m such an overachiever!  I already have my January goals!

I’m in the final days of completing my school projects.  A goal I’ve been striving for since 2007 will be complete:  earn my Master’s part time while working full time.  I switched schools, moved cross country, took 9 months off, and accelerated my pace this last quarter… still, I’m about to do it.  Almost there.  I remember mapping out how long it would take me and thinking how far away the end seemed.  And it is (almost) here.

But.  All that I can think about is:  “What next?!!?  A sprint tri?  Take up surfing?  Train for a marathon!?  Max out my 401k!  Take a photography class!  Learn French!  What next!?  I need a challenge!”

I’m not even done yet!  This needs to stop. I mean, first, I just need to focus at the task at hand.  But second, I need to chill.  Just for awhile.  I want to give myself a little time to explore things without committing to any specific challenge.

Thus I present my December 2009 and January 2010 goals:

1. RELAX

That’s it.  Don’t get me wrong, I still have a ton of stuff I want to do and will get done.  I want to go on a backpacking trip around new years (3-day weekend!) and I want to go hiking ASAP (next weekend, probably).  I want to start up my clothing 2010 project I’ve been thinking about, and I want to get a pedicure and clean out my car.  I want to run more and practice more yoga and read and write and swim and cook and bake and oh, plan that wedding . . .You get the idea.

I’m not good at this whole “relax” stuff!  At the very least, I want to do it all 100% pressure free.  Finance wise, I’m going to keep my 401k where it is at and strive to save as much as I can.  But I’m not going to put a number on it.

I’m putting off any further 2010 goals until I feel less insane.

That is all I can think about lately!

When I’m miserable, I’m also mentally coming up with a list of things I am looking forward to doing when i’m done.

• Ice skating outdoors somewhere in LA area.
• Wine bar happy hour near our apartment
• Ugly Sweater Party (in which I am plotting to look not ugly, but still go with the spirit — I’m thinking over sized sweater fashioned into a dress.  It might go about as well as my duct tape Halloween costume idea, but I’m going to try!)
• Flying back to the Midwest to see the family!!!
• Looking at cakes and stuff to appease T’s mom (they are tasting cake in his home town for the midwest reception, apparently.)
• Christmas shopping
• Holiday baking (?)
• Doing something really nice for my amazingly supportive T!
• Running a 5K?  Maybe.  Or a hike.  Something.

Between now and then I have plenty of work, but I’ve reached a somewhat zen state and accepted my projects are going to be however good they are going to be and it really isn’t going to impact my life in a significant way.   (Somewhat zen.  Not very zen at all, if you were to ask T’s opinion!)

I can’t decide what I want to do with my money.

One day I set some nice reasonable goals for 2010, the next day I become obsessed with maxing out my 401k.  I can do it while maxing my Roth, but my total yearly cash savings would be about $7000.  After the wedding & honeymooon.  Or I can contribute a more modest 15% and have significantly more cash savings.

The problem is, I really want to do it all.  I want to save $21,500 for retirement (401k + Roth) and also save something like $20k cash.  This is obviously not possible.

As much as it pains me to admit it, I probably should focus more on cash next year.  Maxing out my 401k sounds great, but I am going to need a newer car eventually and I want to have some money that we can use for a home.    And 2010 is going to have some one-time expenses.  Maybe 2011 will be my year.

By the way, I know I’m supposed to do the right thing and write about what I’m thankful for.  Can I do that in 2 weeks?  I’m going to feel a lot more thankful in two weeks!

I haven’t been blogging much, because I just feel like whining and venting and generally spreading negativity around. So I’ve been mostly keeping quiet.  I’m extremely frustrated and stressed out.  I also know that it is temporary and my life in general is really kind of awesome.  Just not right now.

My favorite thing to do when things suck is to focus on a time when things will cease being miserable.

I have some 2010 financial goals.  The “fun” goals will be coming soon.  I also want to add some career goals, but I need to see how the next month plays out at my job.

1.  $12,000 to 401k:  This should be doable, assuming I get at least a nominal raise this spring and don’t back off too much on my contributions.  I probably could max this out, but I want more focus on cash goals next year.

2.  Max out my Roth and help T with his: Not necessary financially (but maybe), but at least the logistics.  He has a Roth IRA at a full service brokerage that he doesn’t regularly contribute to.

3.  Save an additional $10k cash distributed among mid/long term savings.  This doesn’t include money I’ll be saving for the wedding/honeymoon, as that obviously will be spent within the year.  It may be a stretch based on the numbers I’ve run so far.  I think a lot of it will go in a car fund.  My car hit 100k recently and is 10 years old.  It hasn’t had any major repair issues, but it dying is a possibility that I need to prepare for. 

4.  Spend $1000 (or less) on clothes in a strategic and smart fashion. This is, somehow, going to show up as a blog series.  I know $1000 sounds like a lot.  And it probably is a lot to some, peanuts to others.  But my goal for 2009 was $1200 ($100/mo) and I’ve already failed.   Most important is the “strategic and smart” caveat.

5.  Merge finances in some way shape or form.  We’re getting married in April.  These goals are just for me, not for us.  T’s income is irregular and doesn’t fit into my more rigid monthly budgeting.  It’s quarterly… except monthly in the summer, or monthly if he gets this or that fellowship.  This year he did random contract work that he randomly is getting paid for just now.  And his taxes are always a nightmare.  I might have tried for a joint budget sooner (because I love making budgets!), but I don’t want to add his messy income into my neat and tidy bi-weekly paycheck.

That’s my plan for 2010.  I also plan to revel in the fact that I no longer have to go to school.  OMG.  Amazing.

Every time a new season comes along, I feel like I have no appropriate clothing.  How is this possible?!?!

How is it possible that I can’t tell whether or not something was a good purchase until months after I bought it?

I need to organize my clothing and my style in 2010.  If I’m going to spend money on it (and I am) I might as well get what I want out of it.  Right?!?!

And, since this is a personal finance blog, you will see the financial part of that.  By the way, I have no real plan on how to do this, suggestions welcome.

In 24 days, I’m supposed to have everything done.  I’m supposed to keep up on my 4 hours of lecture a week and go to work, but the big stress is my two large projects.

One of them is smaller — 40% or something of my grade — and I’m not really sold on the concept I came up with, but I’m going to go with it and call it good enough.

The other one is larger and the concept is fine, but making progress and results is tough.  It is only a 10 page (minimum) paper (not a thesis or anything!) but I’ve been spending a lot of time on it.  And I”ll be spending a lot of time on it.

I have 24 days left.  Of those, 8 are non-work days, and of those 8, 1 is Thanksgiving.  On work days, I can usually get 2-4 hours in.  Unless I have a lecture to watch.  Or if I feel dead.  Which I usually do.

Oh, my budget sucks lately and I don’t want to talk about it.  But I promise we’ll talk about it eventually, along with some 2010 goals.

It somehow seems more endearing to write about finally having a positive net worth (256% increase!) than to note that my retirement accounts finally almost hit a milestone.  (Although, I didn’t really have any readers when that happened.  I don’t blame you though!)   At some point, pf blogging stops feeling like tiny victories and starts feeling more like bragging.  What do you think?

Anyway, now that I slightly increased my retirement contributions, I have nearly $1000/month going into my 401k  from my contributions alone.  (I probably should be focusing more on cash, but that is something I’ll evaluate after the new year.  Only 3 more paychecks this year anyway!)  While this is not as awesome as those that are maxing theirs out, I’m pretty excited about it, and have been watching my retirement account total balance as it creeps towards the next milestone:  $50,000.

After posting last week’s paycheck contributions and market gains, I checked today to find my Roth + Rollover IRA (pre-tax) + 401k (pre-tax) total is ::::drum roll:::: $49,999.66!!! Yay, but are you kidding me!?  Can’t I transfer over fifty cents and call the milestone met?

It’s been a rough week or two, and it probably will be a rough month.  I woke up the other day in tears, and ended another day in tears.  I usually would be concerned about that, but one of them was just needing a good cry (see FB’s post for explanation if you are male).

All of it is short term stress due to slight over scheduling and still adjusting to my job.  It will all be over in a month or so, and that will be HEAVEN.

Here are some good things:

• Performance reviews are coming up soon, and I just got some great customer feedback that should get passed to my manager.
• By January, I should firmly understand my role and where I fit in on my team, and be ready to be a real superstar.  Yes, it really can take 6 months to become competent (at least in my industry)!
• By the end of December, you will have to call me Master!  If all goes as planned, I’ll have my M.S. degree completed!
• Running with my coworkers was a success, and once I’m ready to dedicate to it, I could start training for SOMETHING.  My coworker qualified for Boston — she’s hard core!
• Going home for Christmas!  Can’t wait!  (I think we’re just going to a friend’s for a Thanksgiving potluck.)

Not so good things:

• I can NOT stop “needing” new clothes.  And my almost brand new awesome black work pants got a small tear within 2 weeks.  I’m devastated!  (But plan to attempt a repair.)
• My raise was 3%, and I raised my 401k 3%.  My paycheck went down $10!  Thanks, California, for stealing an interest free loan from me!
• Canceled the Vegas trip.  I just can’t handle it right now.
• My dad probably will be laid off within a few weeks. My dad was laid off yesterday.  He’s been working 6-7 days a week 10/hr days for quite some time, so I would expect they’ll be (relatively) fine.  But still.
• You know that M.S. degree?  It is KILLING me to actually get it.  So.  Much.  Work.

I expect my sudden “need” for certain clothing items is a combination of actually needing cardigans and such for work and finally having room in the budget for it… and plain old retail therapy.  On one hand, my eye is on the budget and I’m trying not to go crazy.  On the other hand, I don’t have the energy to fight it, and if it lasts another month, so be it.  But once I finish school, no excuses!

Everyone has To Do lists, but have you heard of “Not-To-Do” lists?  There are a bunch of things I keep thinking I should do, but that definitely can and should wait!

I don’t know about you, but whenever I am supposed to start studying, I have this urge to start cleaning instead!  There are a lot of little projects I want and need to take care of eventually, so I’ll add them to my “Not To Do” list so I don’t forget about them.

Not To Do List (or, To Do… LATER!)

• Organize closets and dressers
• Get a few things to cheer up my office at work
• Go shopping
• Plan honeymoon
• Oh and all those wedding details.  April is coming FAST!
• Get passport application taken care of
• Figure out a long term fitness routine (join a gym?  Or what?)
• Update blogroll and other little blog maintenance (there are so many great blogs I’ve been reading since my last update.  I do intend to add you, but I don’t need to do it today!)
• Fuss with my 2010 budget and savings goals

To Do List (before Christmas)

• Keep working out at least a couple times a week
• Improve meal planning through weekend batch cooking (so I don’t survive on cereal or junk)
• Get Christmas shopping done
• I think I need an oil change soon?
• Finish my Master’s project
• Finish my project for my other class (no final exam!)
• Keep pushing at work to gain more responsibilities
• Be nice to T