I see a number of entries and forum posts on the topic of financial goals for 2009. As I peruse them, it occurs to me that I really don't have any such goals. My goal for 2008 was to pay off the home equity loan. I did that on Saturday. We are now debt-free except for the mortgage. I'm going to add part of the former home equity payment to the mortgage, part to general savings and part to adding texting to our cell phone service.

I really haven't identified any other goals or change in plans for 2009. Everything is cruising along smoothly. I don't anticipate any changes in my employment or DW's employment.

We haven't made any definite travel plans but have pretty much decided to go to Disney World for two weeks at the end of August.

I'm hopeful that neither of our cars will need replacing in the coming year.

There are some things we need to do around the house, but nothing overly costly that would require special planning. Just stuff that can be covered out of our regular income.

We always max our Roths. DW contributes the maximum allowed to her 401k. Thanks to paying off the HEL, I just upped my savings rate from 19% to 20%. As always, in June, I'll see where things stand and up it to 21% July 1st if that seems doable.

There just isn't anything big on the 2009 horizon.

Yesterday was a roller coaster ride in the money department. While at work, I had some down time and was able to do a $30 survey online. It is always nice to earn extra money at the same time I'm earning my regular salary. That was the good news.

When I got home, my wife was waiting for me with the bad news. She had accidentally put her jeans in the wash without emptying her pockets. Her cell phone (that she just got a couple of months ago) was in her pocket. It is currently drying on the counter but does not appear as if it will come back to life. The phone will probably work but I think the screen is destroyed, making the phone kind of worthless.

Then I opened the mail and had 3 survey checks totaling $145, so that was more good news. And my wife also told me that she had gotten a bonus check at work, which neither of us was expecting, for $150. After taxes and the 401k deduction, the actual check came to $61, but $75 plus match went into the 401k.

At first, I thought she might have to buy a phone outright which can be very costly, but we checked our account and it turns out that 2 of our phones are eligible for upgrades, so she can get a new phone for free with a contract extension. In the meantime, she still has her old phone which is broken but still works, so she plugged her SIMM card into that so at least she has a phone until she gets a new one.

So more good news than bad, and the bad news turned out not so bad. I thought it would be costing us money but probably won't in the end.

For the newbies, I'm a physician and get to do various market research surveys online for doctors only.

For November, I earned $253 on surveys. That is low compared to the past when I was doing as much as $700 or so, but I had slacked off doing them for a while. Since there is a lag of several weeks between when the survey is done and when payment comes, I'm still feeling the effects of that. Lately, I've tried to get back to doing them more regularly so hopefully the December number will be higher.

As of today, the remaining balance on our home equity loan is $1,439.20. I've been working to have it paid off by the end of the year and that's exactly what we'll be doing. That balance is down $1,392.75 from last month. I'll make one more extra partial payment after my next paycheck on 12/12 and then I'll have to go in to the bank soon after to get a final payoff amount and to make sure they stop the auto-withdrawals for the regular monthly payments.

The monthly payment has been $218.00, so as of January, we will no longer have that bill. Yeah! I'm not 100% sure what to do with that money quite yet. Initially, I'll probably use it to rebuild savings a bit since we had some expensive car repairs recently and our daughter's Bat Mitzvah of course. Then, I'll probably start making some extra payments to the mortgage, our last remaining debt.

I realized that I never posted my October survey numbers.

Quick recap: I'm a physician and get to do various online (and occasionally in person) surveys. These are not available to the general public - sorry.

For October, I earned $209.25. A little of that is from Pinecone and AOL Opinion Place. The rest is the medical stuff. As I posted on the boards, I've also sold a few books that I got from doing surveys which adds another $15 or so to that total.

As of 10/31, our Home Equity loan balance is $2,831.95. That is down $1,970.49 from last month.

My goal was to pay this off by the end of the year and I'm right on track. Even if the alloted percentage isn't quite enough, I have surplus funds to use to make up the difference.

So as of January 1, I will no longer have a $218.01 monthly HEL payment to make. Yeah!

Our synagogue called yesterday and left a message for my wife that there was a check there for her. She did do some part-time work for them not long ago but she was already paid for that, so we didn't know what the check could have been for.

She picked it up last night. Turns out it was the $250 security deposit we paid to rent the room for our daughter's Bat Mitzvah a few weeks ago. Neither of us remembered that we had it coming to us. That was a nice little bonus.

I realized I haven't posted for a couple of weeks. Nothing particularly exciting has been going on but I figured I'd give some updates.

1. Even though I stopped doing the Exercise Log entries, I have not stopped exercising. I'm still working out with Wii Fit. I think I did 22 minutes tonite.

Now that I've had it for over a month, I would still highly recommend it for anyone looking for a home exercise regimen. Much more convenient than a gym, not dependent on the weather and you can exercise on your own schedule. It is even portable if you go out of town and want to pack it. As long as you have a TV to hook it to, you're all set.

Not only that, but the other night, the TV was in use so I just went upstairs and did several of the exercises I've learned from Wii in our bedroom. You can't do the balance games but can certainly do the yoga, strength training and aerobic ones.

2. My wife and I visited a local casino (Chester, PA) last week. I won $93 and she won about $12. We had a casual dinner at their sports bar and just had a nice evening out. We're planning to go again on Saturday morning while our daughter is at a school program. We'll play a little and maybe do an early lunch or snack.

3. Got the van fixed today. It had failed inspection for an emissions problem. Repairs came to almost $1,500. I know I could have had it done cheaper elsewhere but the dealership is so convenient. They provide excellent service, a free rental and I trust that they know what they're doing. They did recommend some other work be done (like front brakes and tires) but I decided to shop around for those things. Now I just have to get it back to DMV to get re-inspected.

4. We had to scrub our annual Disney World trip. My daughter was hand-picked for a special school program that meets every Saturday for 6 weeks and that conflicts with when we were going to go. We're all bummed since we have been going annually for a long time (my daughter just turned 13 and has been there 14 times). We're talking about going next summer instead. We'd love to go for more than a week so we could do that then. Can't do it during the school year.

5. Since we can't go to Disney, we may just go away for 2 days that week when my daughter has no school. We're deciding where to go. Lancaster, PA is always on our list so that's probably where we'll end up.

6. As I mentioned on the boards, I got 2 books for doing medical surveys. I put them on Half.com and sold one within 24 hours for $7.99. The other one is still listed but hasn't sold yet. Since I got them for nothing, anything I make is okay with me.

7. Watching my portfolio dissolve right along with everyone else but keeping my cool. 18 years until retirement and 6 until college so time for things to turn around. I'm sorry that I already maxed our Roths for the year. I would have liked to have been putting that $10,000 in now instead of earlier in the year like I did. Oh well.

Can't think of anything else to report at the moment.

Last night, I returned most of the unused alcohol we had bought to stock the bar for the Bat Mitzvah. We had originally spent just over $1,100 using the recommended list the caterer had given me.

We were able to return any unopened bottles of liquor or wine or unopened cases of beer. We kept 8 bottles of wine for ourselves. We also had to keep, I think, 3 12-packs of beer because we had written on the boxes. And, of course, we couldn't return any opened bottles, so we have quite a few of them at home now.

End result was I returned $554.00 worth of stuff which I was very happy about. That means we spent about $566 for alcohol including all the stuff we get to keep. Knock off the 8 bottles of wine, which really shouldn't count as a Bat Mitzvah expense, and the total was under $500. Had we gotten the liquor from the caterer instead of supplying it ourselves, the charge would have been $15/person. We had 106 people so we would have paid $1,590, meaning we saved over $1,000 doing it ourselves. Plus that way we wouldn't have gotten to keep the leftovers.

I think what really kept the liquor bill low was that I make my own homemade Lemoncello. A lot of our synagogue friends are familiar with it and many others became familiar with it that night. I brought about 4 liters of it to the affair and we used about 2.5 liters. That only cost me about $35 to make but a lot of people drank that instead of the other stuff.

The other money back came from the balloons. We had changed the original balloon order but I realized after the fact that when I picked them up on Saturday, they charged me for the original order, which was more. I went back with the receipt last night and explained the error and they credited me $54 for the overcharge.

So I got back a total of $608 dollars last night which was a nice little bit of change.

For the newbies, I'm a physician and have the opportunity to do various online surveys. These surveys are not available to the general public.

As expected, my survey income has been off sharply because I had pretty much stopped doing them, especially while I was doing all the work to prepare for our daughter's Bat Mitzvah.

Total survey income for September was only $160. Considering I was pulling in over $700/month before, that's pretty lousy.

Now that the Bat Mitzvah is behind us, I'm planning to get back on track and start doing them all again. Especially with current economic conditions, I can't afford to pass up hundreds of dollars each month in extra income.

I just redeemed $40 on my account and $20 on my wife's account for our Discover cards. We use them pretty much only to take advantage of the 5% cashback bonus offers. The past 3 months, that included gas stations so 5% back was helpful. I also signed up for the 4th quarter which is restaurants, grocery stores and movies. We won't use the movies but we'll definitely use the other two. Just have to remind DW to use the Discover card for those purchases.

As of today, our home equity loan balance is $4802.44.

That is down $1,409 from one month ago. The plan is to pay it off by the end of the year.

NOTE: Edited 9/30 to correct amounts.

For the newbies, I'm a physician and have the opportunity to do various online surveys. These surveys are not available to the general public.

As expected (see last month's entry), August was a very slow month for survey income because I slacked off on doing them. No good reason. I just got tired of it.

So my total survey income for August was $243. Considering I earned almost $500 more than that in July, it is disappointing, but it is my own darned fault. I'm still not back in the groove of doing them. I really need to get off my butt and start doing them again. It is easy money and I'm just letting it fly out the window.

It hasn't been a full month since I posted a loan update, but I want to start doing it at the end of each month.

As of today, my home equity loan balance is $6,211.45.

In August, I made extra principal payments of $1,170.00 as well as the regularly scheduled payment of $218.01. My goal (which I'm quite sure I can meet) is to pay if off by the end of the year.

I think there may be a new financial goal in our future - a vacation home. In the past, we had considered buying a home in Florida to use for our Disney trips and to rent out the rest of the time. After looking into it, speaking with a realtor, a property management company and some other owners in the area, we decided against it.

Now, though, we are thinking about getting a place much closer to home in a location that we actually visit regularly, multiple times per year. It is close enough that we could use the place just for an overnight or weekend stay. We wouldn't be looking to rent it out, though we would consider offering it to a select group of friends and family for a modest charge (well below the going rates in the area) just to help defray our costs a bit.

I've just started to look into it and run numbers to figure out what we can afford, what places are going for in the area, and when we can seriously consider it - we can't at this point in time. Maybe in 5-10 years or so, though, we would be in a position where we could make it a reality. Just something to dream about right now.

It's been a few weeks since I posted about the light at the end of the HEL tunnel. At that time, my balance was $8,419.51. I thought I would start posting regular updates as I work toward paying it off by year's end.

As of today, the balance is $6,903.59, so I've repaid $1,515.92 in the past month.

Quick recap - I'm a physician and get to do various online surveys that pay quite well. These are not available to the general public. I also do some regular surveys like PineCone and AOL Opinion Place.

For July, I earned $723.75 doing surveys which was very good. I'm expecting that August will be somewhat lower because I've actually slacked off a bit and neglected to do all of the ones I've been invited to do recently. Really no excuse as I've got plenty of time. Instead of chatting on the boards, I could be doing more of the surveys, but sometimes I just get burned out doing them.

As I've mentioned, I am currently making extra principal payments on our home equity loan. I originally anticipated paying it off by the end of 2009.

I saw last night, though, that the balance is down to $8,419.51. If the second half of the year works out about the same as the first half, at least $7,900 would go toward the loan. And I know how my mind works. Once I get close to being paid off, I'm not going to mess around with little payments. When it is down to a couple thousand, I'll just make one final payment and be done with it. So it looks like the loan will actually be gone by the end of 2008, not 2009!

Our scheduled payment is $218.01/month, so our disposable income will jump by that amount once the loan is gone. Of course, most of that will be directed into additional savings, but some, perhaps up to $50/mo, will likely go toward some new treat. When I paid off one loan, I hired someone to mow the lawn ($54/mo). When I paid off another, we got cable TV (limited basic for $11/mo). I don't really have anything in mind for a portion of this money but I'm sure we'll figure it out.

It is just nice to see that the end is near. Once the HEL is gone, we will have nothing left but our primary mortgage. That's where most of the $218 will go. An extra $150 or so per month toward that will ensure that it is paid off well before retirement.

For the newbies, I'm a family practice physician. I have the opportunity to do various online surveys (and occasionally in person or telephone surveys). These are for physicians only and can be quite long, involved and tedious, though some are fairly simple. They generally pay quite well, though.

For the month of June 2008, I collected payments totaling $760.50, a great month!

I also did surveys that will pay me another $675 in the coming weeks. There is usually a lag of 2-4 weeks between when the survey is done and when I get paid, so it looks like July will be another very good month.

Nope, I didn't take a break on the weekend. In fact, since I was home, I did a lot more.

Saturday is typically our cleaning day around here. I went through the remaining pile of stuff next to my bed. I took the load of recyclables I had accumulated in the computer room down to the bin in the garage. I went back into the basement and did some further work around the same area as the day before.

My daughter was cleaning in her room because a friend was coming over. I helped her go through a stack of old books in her closet, almost all of which went in the garage for a yard sale or donation. I pulled out a couple that will get sold online.

Finally, I got outside and pruned some bushes/weeds filling up 3 trash cans of branches in the process. Decluttering isn't limited to inside the house.

Today, Sunday, I did some more work on the floor in the computer room. There was a bag of kids books that I don't even know how long they've been there. I realized that my cousin had given them to us. They used to be her daughter's and she thought my daughter could use them. I went through the whole bag and all but a couple ended up in that stack from yesterday to sell or give away.

I cleaned up some other stuff in the same area on the computer room floor, enough that I was able to consolidate other stuff and actually expand the usable floor space by a couple of feet which was nice.

I think that is the major stuff, though there were probably a few other little things along the way.

I actually wasn't going to post again about decluttering yet, but since some others are finding it motivating, I'm happy to help out.

Nothing exciting to report from Wednesday. Just sorted through some more papers on the bookcase.

Oh, we did get our new RecycleBank container for our township recycling program. I posted about that not long ago. With the new program, your recyclables get weighed each week and you earn credits that can be redeemed for gift cards and discounts at a bunch of local merchants. Our first pickup isn't until July 3 but I've been saving up our recyclables in anticipation and yesterday after work, I loaded up the new bin, so that counts as decluttering since a bunch of stuff was scattered around in the garage.

Today, after work, I discovered that my wife had done some decluttering of her own. There was a pile of assorted stuff on the floor in our bedroom in front of the cabinet where we keep all our wrapping paper, ribbon, gifts bags and such. She got rid of most of the pile. So I made that area my focus tonight and went through the remaining part of the pile that was mostly my stuff.

I also straightened up all my sheet music by my piano.

How's everyone else doing?

I just transferred the final $330 to DW's Roth. That maxes hers at $5,000 and I maxed mine a few weeks ago with the tax stimulus check, so we are done for 2008!

The "extra" savings for the remainder of the year will go toward prepaying our home equity loan. The balance is about $10,000 and I plan to have it repaid by the end of 2009.

The medical speaking engagement I was supposed to have on 6/18 has been cancelled. The sales rep was in this morning. She said they just got back from their annual meeting and the company is discontinuing those types of programs so she had to cancel my upcoming lecture.

I'm bummed as I would have earned $625 for that presentation.

Recap for the newbies - I'm a physician and get to do various online surveys for doctors only. These are not surveys available to the general public. They pay very well and can sometimes be technically difficult to complete.

After a very slow month in April, my survey income rebounded very nicely in May. I collected a total of $680. And that doesn't include a few dollars in AOL Opinion Place surveys.

More months like May would be very nice.

We met with the caterer for our daughter's Bat Mitzvah last night. Along with finalizing the menu and decorating details, we also had to make a partial payment of $5,300. I knew it was coming. We had the money saved. But I still hate writing checks for big numbers like that.

We're really happy with how the menu planning went. It all sounds delicious and we're looking forward to attending the party. We've been to so many affairs where the food was tolerable at best. We've even been to some where we left the reception and headed straight to a restaurant because we were so hungry. That won't be happening after this affair.

Now if only we could disown some family members and whittle down the guest list by 10 or 20 or 30 people. Oh well. Can't have everything.

I haven't written an entry for a couple of weeks. Nothing particular to report on until now, so here's an update.

I just transferred another $445 to my wife's Roth. Mine got maxed at $5,000 with the money from the tax stimulus. After today's transfer, I need to send in another $1,085 to max hers. I'll do that in the next couple of weeks.

Our daughter's Bat Mitzvah is 4 months away, September 27th. We are meeting with the caterer on Wednesday to go over the menu, table linens, and other details. We will be making an installment payment to him of $5,300 also. That represents approximately 50% of the total bill. At that meeting, I'll get the suggested bar list so that we can start shopping for the alcohol needed. We will be saving hundreds by providing the alcohol ourselves instead of paying them to provide it.

We spent the day in Atlantic City yesterday. The 3 of us plus my mother went down. We had a nice lunch together and then my wife and I went to Caesar's to play for a couple of hours. Also, I had a $25 cash comp to collect. I ended up losing $50 at blackjack which left me down $25 counting the money they gave me for coming in. My wife lost about $46 and got a $5 comp for parking, so $41 for her.

After lunch, we did some shopping at the outlets. We picked up some nice stuff at the Disney outlet on clearance - a couple of Mickey vases $3.99 (one to keep, one for a pollyanna present for our collector's club), an Eeyore wall-hanging $3.50, and a couple of very nice stained-glass hangings $2.50.

I guess that's all for the moment.

A while back, I got an e-mail from the New Hampshire tourism dept. to do an online survey. We vacationed in NH last summer which is how they got my name. I filled out the survey and thought that was the end of things.

A couple of days ago, I get a letter from them inviting me to join the NH Travel Advisory Panel. I would have to complete a series of 4 online surveys over the next year. For each survey, I'll get a gift card from one of several companies of my choice. Plus I'll get an extra $10 for registering for the panel by 5/23. All together, it will be $65 for the 4 surveys and sign-up bonus.

I just registered, which took about 5 seconds, and I'll get $10 for doing that. The first survey is in June, then September, December and March. Pretty simple way to pick up an extra $65. BTW, I chose Amazon for my gift cards.

We got our $1,500 tax stimulus deposit on Friday. I just transferred $1,345 to my Roth. That was how much was needed to max it to $5,000, so I'm done with that account for the year. The remaining $155 went into my wife's Roth. That brought her total to $3,470. Another $1,530 and we'll be set for 2008.

I just transferred $675 to my wife's Roth. That brings our total for 2008 to $6,970. Only $3,030 to go. Our tax stimulus check is due to be direct deposited tomorrow. That is $1,500 and I'll transfer that to the Roths leaving $1,530 to max them for the year.

Now that I'm back and settled from the weekend, I tallied up what the whole deal cost me.

Thursday, I flew to West Palm Beach, FL to attend my aunt's funeral on Friday. Friday night I flew home and drove to Princeton, NJ to attend our good friends' son's Bar Mitzvah on Saturday and Sunday. Of course, the Bar Mitzvah trip was planned but the funeral trip was not.

Not counting gas for the car or any new clothes, we spent about $1,015 in 4 days. $735 was for the funeral and the rest was for the Bar Mitzvah. And I'm not even counting lost income from taking the day off on Friday. If I add in everything, it would be over $1,500.

I'm not complaining at all as I'm very, very glad I was able to be at the funeral and we've been friends with the Bar Mitzvah family since high school (over 25 years now) and wouldn't have missed that affair for anything. It just illustrates how important savings and emergency funds are.