It's only the second week in January and I'm already changing up my goals. Actually, I'm not changing the goals themselves but I'm changing how I'm going to get them accomplished. And I'm adding a goal. I want to buy a house and my new goal is to buy one by the end of the year. I would like to get a fixer upper for around $30,000 (around here that is a totally reasonable price for a decent home that needs a little updating) - paid with cash - and then get a home improvement loan to fix it up. I'll probably need to save $40,000 for the house just to make sure I have enough for insurance, taxes, closing costs, inspection and anything else that pops up. I would also like to have $1,000 in my emergency fund instead of $500. This new goal will also make it 100 times harder to complete my goal of NYC for my birthday. I'm still going to try though. Here is my action plan to achieve this new goal:
Step 1: Pay off my line of credit. I have a line of credit of $250 that I used to buy Christmas gifts. I should be able to get this paid off before the end of the month. I have $100 in savings plus I'm getting another $225 from Amazon at the end of the month.
Step 2: Save $300 to fix my car. My car needs an oil change, a new
battery and a car wash. It also has something wrong with it that I
haven't been able to figure out so I'll likely need to take it to a
mechanic. I'm hoping that it doesn't need more than $200 worth of
repairs. I should be able to complete this step in February.
Step 3: Save $1,000 in my emergency fund. I'm not sure how long this will take. I'm going to try to do surveys on Mturk and whatever I make from there will be deposited into the account. I also have a huge box of stuff to sell on eBay so that will be more money for the account once I sell it.
Step 4: Once I have $1,000 in my emergency account, I can begin to save for a house. Just like step 3, I will be depositing any money I make from Mturk and eBay. I can also do freelance writing work. I'm hoping to get my Squidoo lenses to $1,000 or more per month so that money will be deposited into the account as well. I'm expecting that it will take many, many months to get to my $40,000 goal. It might even take all year. I would love to have enough saved up by October.
Step 5: Buy a house. This might be before I reach the goal for step 4, depending on if I can find a cheap enough house. Sometimes, a really cheap house will show up on the market for $20,000 or less. If it is in a decent location, I like the house and the repairs are cosmetic, I might buy it. Some houses on eBay have owner financing with no credit check so I could also buy a house from there. Otherwise, when I reach my goal of $40,000 I will get a Realtor to help me find a house in my price range.
I would love to be in my own house before my 30th birthday. It's going to be tough and I'll have to make a lot of sacrifices but I think I can do it.
