This morning, my wife and I sent in the final payment on her student loans, which was our primary personal finance goal for 2008 and our highest interest outstanding debt. It felt good. Really good.

Our next personal finance goal is to pay off my remaining student loan, which has an outstanding balance of $14,800 or so. This was the goal we had penciled in as our primary goal for 2009, intending to pay it off by the end of that year. Paying off that debt will leave us with only our mortgage as debt.

Rolling back the clock just twenty seven months really puts this financial turnaround in perspective. My wife had roughly $24K in student loans, all told (now paid off). I had $10K in one student loan (already paid off) and about $25K in another loan (now below $15K). We also both had significant amounts remaining on our separate car loans - I owed at least $5K on my truck at that point (now paid off), and she owed at least $2K on her car (also paid off). We also had a combined $17K (approximately) in credit card debt.

Adding that up means we’ve paid off a stunning $68K in debt in a little over two years. For comparison’s sake, our debt repayment is roughly equal to our 2006 income and not too much lower than our 2007 income, which should give a good idea of how hard we’ve pushed the pedal to the floor since our meltdown.

Now, we just have the remainders of my single remaining student loan and a mortgage to pay off. That’s all.

How did we do it? I’ve written about this a number of times, but it’s just as true now as it was then. We took a hard look at our financial situation, realized we were simply spending far more than we earned, and pushed ourselves - and each other individually - to turn that ship around. We sold off mountains of video games and DVDs and trading cards. We adopted much less expensive hobbies. I began to look seriously at alternative avenues for raising money in my spare time - at first, it was repairing computers, and then I began to have some success as a writer as well. We started preparing food at home instead of eating out most of the time. We made a debt repayment plan and started snowballing our payments, meaning as soon as one debt was paid off, we transferred that whole payment as an extra payment on the next debt.

The most important thing of all, though, was realizing that we needed to turn things around for each other and for our children. Spending far more than we earned was creating a dangerous path for our future, one that simply couldn’t continue.

We use each other as inspiration to push ourselves harder to save money. If my spouse has the financial strength to do it, so do I. If our children have a life of rich and full experiences and they’re emotionally centered, then we’re doing our jobs as parents, even if they don’t have the latest and greatest of everything.

But, for now, it’s time for us to celebrate a little in the way we’ve become accustomed to. A pair of steaks from the freezer are thawing and soon I’m going to go harvest some lettuce from the garden and maybe a fresh tomato or two, plus there’s a bottle of homemade blackberry wine that will be opened up and poured as a dessert drink. An amazing dinner, not much different than what we would have spent a lot of cash on a few years ago, but instead prepared and eaten at home, together, as a family.

Once again, it’s time for a monthly review of my finances. I generally break things down by evaluating my assets and my debts (which together make up my net worth), and then using these numbers, I attempt to set goals for the coming month. This is a useful exercise for everyone to do, simply so they can keep tabs on their overall assets and debts and make sure that they are consistently heading in the right direction. Let’s break it down.

My goals for February were interesting and varied. I had four goals for the month:

No eating out unless there’s a special opportunity with my wife. I didn’t quite achieve this goal, as I ate out a few times during the month mostly out of a pure convenience need, sadly enough. Sometimes, there aren’t enough hours in the day to do what I want.

Start saving for my wife’s birthday gift. Check, though I somewhat modified what I had in mind originally.

Reduce my debt by 1%. Check, and this one was a big milestone. It felt awesome to realize that my entire debt load was reduced by 1% this month. If I were able to make this same amount of debt reduction every month, I would be completely debt free in less than six years. No mortgage, no nothing. Wow.

Spend $0 on entertainment purchases this month. Check. The only new entertainment item I acquired the entire month was a long-preordered game for the Nintendo DS that I had purchased using a Christmas gift card.

Three out of four? Pretty good. My only real disappointment was in my assets, where it went down substantially due to a second straight weak month for my retirement accounts and higher-than-expected energy bills.

In March, my biggest focus is building up some extra buffer for when I leave my job at the end of the month, so Here are my goals for the next thirty one days.

An asset growth of 0.8%. I’m going to pull back the throttle on my rapid debt repayment schedule for a while and instead build up more cash in my savings and checking accounts for the moment. Thus, I’m shooting for a decent asset growth this month.

Completion of my 2007 income taxes. I have to pay in a little bit based on my thumbnail estimate. During the month, I hope to get this all finished up and sent in.

A very detailed plan for the first six months of my layoff. I already have a rough sketch of the first year, but I work best with specific plans and deadlines, so I’m going to literally lay down a daily schedule (four days a week) for the first six months after I leave my current job. The fifth day would give me room to breathe and also some space to work on other projects.

That’s my personal financial plan for the coming month. What’s yours?

Once again, it’s time for a monthly review of my finances. I generally break things down by evaluating my assets and my debts (which together make up my net worth), and then using these numbers, I attempt to set goals for the coming month. This is a useful exercise for everyone to do, simply so they can keep tabs on their overall assets and debts and make sure that they are consistently heading in the right direction. Let’s break it down.

Like many people, my retirement accounts took a serious pounding this month. My retirement investments dropped a full 6% - very painful, indeed. Even though my checking account and savings actually grew, the retirement loss, coupled with a very late expected payment from my business, dragging my overall assets down slightly.

Of course, this looks like a buying situation to me. I have been saving cash for a couple of significant purchases (primarily, a minivan), and I’m now considering putting that money in the stock market instead.

My goals for this month were for an asset growth of 1% and a debt reduction of 1% - I would have reached the former without the stock market volatility (even a zero market or just a slight down market would have been okay), and I basically reached the second goal this month, ending with no credit card debt at all, in fact. So, I don’t feel as though the wheels have fallen off, but I was fairly lazy this month when it came to being frugal.

What are my goals for next month? There are some interesting ones on this list this time, not just straight number ones.

First, I’m not going to eat out at all unless there’s a special opportunity with my wife. We may go out to dinner for Valentine’s Day and leave the kids with a babysitter, but other than that, everything I eat will be prepared at home. I am considering making this a permanent goal.

Second, I’m going to start saving for a special birthday surprise for my wife, saving 15% of the value by the end of the month. This is something she’s wanted for a long time and I think it’s a reasonable thing to spend money on - not something stupid and extravagant like a fur coat. Thus, I started a sub-account at ING Direct to save up the cash for this special item. Since I don’t want to spoil the surprise, I’m not going to mention it any further on here - but I will mention it after it’s done.

Third, my target for debt reduction next month is 1%. This means that, even though my credit cards have a zero balance, I hope to still knock 1% off my total debt next month. That will probably come in the form of a large overpayment on my student loans.

Fourth, I’m going to spend $0 on entertainment purchases this month. This is again excepting a possible Valentine’s Day date with my wife, when we might go to a movie. This means no music downloads, no DVDs, no video games, no books, no anything. I intend to hit the library a few times instead.

So, in a nutshell, I’m trying to do a massive trim on my soft spending next month to see how it goes. It should be fun. Check back next month, and I’ll talk about how it went.

Once again, it’s time for a monthly review of my finances. I generally break things down by evaluating my assets and my debts (which together make up my net worth), and then using these numbers, I attempt to set goals for the coming month. This is a useful exercise for everyone to do, simply so they can keep tabs on their overall assets and debts and make sure that they are consistently heading in the right direction. Let’s break it down.

December went very well, mostly thanks to the fact that I didn’t spend nearly as much on Christmas as I was originally anticipating. I actually already had many of the gifts on hand and others were handmade gifts that I invested time in rather than money. The end result? The Christmas bill wasn’t nearly as big as I thought.

Thus, I far exceeded my goals. I wanted to achieve a debt reduction of 1% (check), an asset growth of 0.2% (check plus plus), and Christmas gift-giving without worry (check plus plus).

When I have months like this, where I’m able to do the things I personally want with no worries at all, it makes the frugality and cost-saving choices that I make seem really worthwhile. At that pace, carried over several years, all of my debt vanishes in about eight years and my assets double in value in about twenty eight months - and that’s in a down stock market. Now, admittedly, I can’t keep up the pace - in some months, I have tax bills and other unexpected expenses. But that doesn’t change one simple fact: I’m making good progress each and every month, and that good progress really adds up.

My goals for next month are fairly modest, mostly based on the fact that I have to do some traveling.

Asset growth of 1% This requires my normal plan plus either a non-disastrous month on the stock market or some strongly frugal living from me.

Debt reduction of 1% Again, I’m hacking away at debt at the same pace as before, so this is pretty expected provided there are no unforeseen events.

These should both be achievable if I stick to my basic principles of frugality, reasonable spending, and automated saving and investing. I’m not planning on any big “stretch” goals until the spring, because the next few months are filled with some travel and a few unpredictable expenses.

Once again, it’s time for a monthly review of my finances. I generally break things down by evaluating my assets and my debts (which together make up my net worth), and then using these numbers, I attempt to set goals for the coming month. This is a useful exercise for everyone to do, simply so they can keep tabs on their overall assets and debts and make sure that they are consistently heading in the right direction. Let’s break it down.

This month, I really tightened things down and focused heavily on debt repayment, which is why you see that my total debt went down 1.2% this month. I knocked off a big chunk of student loan debt this month and didn’t spend very much at all. It was a good feeling, one that I intend to repeat in coming months.

How are we doing this? Early in November, we sat down and assembled a debt snowball for all of our remaining debts - our student loans and our mortgage. We’re throwing our money at this snowball as hard as we can, watching the debt disappear. Our anticipated date for the first payoff is next July, and then the remaining loan will be done in October, after which we’ll start hammering away on our mortgage.

What about next month? The month of December looks to be one that will see a lot of extra expenses due to the Christmas season. Thus, my goals for the coming month are relatively easy:

Asset growth of 0.2% This should largely result from normal deposits into my retirement fund and having slightly more in checking and savings at the end of the month than at the start.

Debt reduction of 1% I’ve set up a lot of large automatic payments on my student loan debts, so this is roughly what should occur with those payments, and perhaps one extra one (a Christmas gift to myself, in the form of peace of mind).

Christmas gift-giving without worry This is the first year in my entire life where I’ll be able to give nice Christmas gifts without financial worry. I really look forward to it.

Once again, it’s time for a monthly review of my finances. I generally break things down by evaluating my assets and my debts (which together make up my net worth), and then using these numbers, I attempt to set goals for the coming month. This is a useful exercise for everyone to do, simply so they can keep tabs on their overall assets and debts and make sure that they are consistently heading in the right direction. Let’s break it down.

After some careful deliberation, my wife and I made a decision in the middle of the month to focus heavily on debt repayment over building our assets, and as a result my debt took a major step downward this month because I paid off one of my outstanding student loans in its entirety. That’s right, we now have only my wife’s student loan, my one remaining student loan, and our home mortgage as debt.

Thus, last month’s goals didn’t really apply too much. My goals were centered around asset growth, which was mostly money to be put into savings while we made some challenging decisions about what to do next. Now that we’ve made those decisions, my asset growth was tiny, but my debts took a very large swoon.

Our next goal is to get rid of my wife’s student loan, and I’m going to be contributing some significant cash to that. I don’t include her student loan in my net worth calculation (we agreed that we’d individually be responsible for debts brought into the marriage), so I expect that over the next several months, my asset growth and debt reduction will remain relatively flaccid, but once that debt is gone, things will shoot off like a rocket.

Here are my goals for the coming month.

Asset growth of +0.25%. This goal will be accomplished by continued contributions to retirement and to various savings goals.

Debt reduction of 0.25%. I can largely accomplish this by making a mortgage payment, not charging up the credit cards, and making a student loan payment.

Paying off 10% of my wife’s student loan. Her loan is well north of $10,000, so this is actually the real tough goal for the month. Since I’ve made a pretty serious commitment to frugality this month, this is actually an achievable goal. In the following months, I’ll keep this as a goal and keep raising the percentage on it.

Once again, it’s time for a monthly review of my finances. I generally break things down by evaluating my assets and my debts (which together make up my net worth), and then using these numbers, I attempt to set goals for the coming month. This is a useful exercise for everyone to do, simply so they can keep tabs on their overall assets and debts and make sure that they are consistently heading in the right direction. Let’s break it down.

Assets My assets went up very nicely this month thanks to better than expected income from my side businesses and a timely investment in the Vanguard 500 (I got in about two days before the Fed dropped interest rates). It was also helped by a strong lack of frivolous spending.

Debts My debt went down, too, this month. The percentage actually would have dropped much more than that except for the fact that the credit card payments I made at the end of the month hadn’t gone through yet when I did the figures - I had subtracted the bill payment from the assets, but it hadn’t hit the card yet. This included most of my expenses for food and for The Simple Dollar throughout the month.

Last Month’s Goals (see last month’s review)

An asset gain of 1.25% I exceeded this goal thanks to a pretty solid month on the stock market and some strong income. I think this goal was pretty appropriate for getting me to not spend money this month.

A debt reduction of 0.25% I managed to beat this goal even with my credit card payment for the month not going through yet. This was in large part due to a pretty nice payment that ate up about a third of my smaller student loan bill - I had been saving money in a savings account for that purpose.

This Month’s Goals

An asset gain of 1.5% Since I made the goal from last month, I decided to light a fire under myself and set that goal a bit higher.

A debt reduction of 0.5% Similarly, let’s light a fire here, though that credit card payment will help with this number.

After the big move that dominated June and July’s financial situation, it’s back to a monthly review of my finances. I generally break things down by evaluating my assets and my debts (which together make up my net worth), and then using these numbers, I attempt to set goals for the coming month. This is a useful exercise for everyone to do, simply so they can keep tabs on their overall assets and debts and make sure that they are consistently heading in the right direction. Let’s break it down.

Assets After spending a lot in June and July, August was a very frugal month, with almost no spending at all other than the basic bills. We ate almost exclusively at home (I actually don’t think we ate out at all this month), didn’t buy anything frivolous, and basically just spent the month settling into the house and getting ready for the arrival of the baby in September.

Debts With the mortgage added into the debt column, debts are going to go down slowly for a while, I fear. Since I am using a “savings account debt snowball” (meaning I’m saving up money in a savings account for the strict purpose of paying off larger debts all at once), there will be months where a big minus will appear here (when I get rid of our student loan debts, first of all). After that, I will build up a very healthy emergency fund, then start making larger payments on my home loan.

So, let’s set some goals for September! Short term goals like these make it easier to stay motivated throughout the month.

An asset gain of 1.25% In September, the baby will arrive, so that means that I’ll probably have some extra expenses related to her arrival. Still, I shouldn’t have to spend too much and with some frugal living and not much spending, I can meet this goal.

A debt reduction of 0.25% I decided to bump up my overpayment on my highest interest student loan for the coming future. I am really living way below my means and my emergency funds are making me feel comfortable enough to start being more aggressive with my debts. According to my math, this should bump up my debt reduction to this level.

Can I do it? Tune in next month. Even better, set your own goals and see if you can make it!