stripethree

The holiday’s have come and gone and I have to say I’m kind of glad they are done. The last month and a half has been a blur and I knew these holidays wouldn’t be the same as I wouldn’t be spending them in Maryland with family. I talked to family back home on Christmas Eve and to my parents on Christmas Day and I certainly missed being there in person. On the other hand, it probably won’t be the last time it happens so, might as well learn to deal with it. Summer and I still did our own Christmas which was fun, and we hung out with a friends and their family on Christmas Day. For New Years one of the VW guys hosted a party at his house which was excellent.

So, a year ago I laid down some goals of the financial variety. For the most part I accomplished them: the car got paid off, the student loans got paid off, and I resisted the expensive temptation of track weekends. Sounds like I nailed them all, but, really, I didn’t get as far as reducing my overall debt as I would have liked mainly because I pickied up a second car and upped the ante with autocross.

I really don’t know what expectations I have for the new year, and I’m really not interested in forming any right now. Resolutions be damned, just because the month, day, and last number of the year change, does that really change much else? Who knows.

I stuck to my plans and accomplished one of the things I set out to do at the start of the year: I paid off my car. I sent in the payoff amount to Volkswagen credit and now have been notified that my account has been paid in full and has been closed. Woohoo! Good bye car payment, hello freed up money which will now be used to reduce other debt. Sallie Mae, I’m looking at YOU.

It’s the end of the year, time to be super retrospective and set some ‘resolutions’ right?

Eh.

Although there were moments and instances were it seemed like time was standing still and would never resume its progress, the year as a whole blew by. Maybe it was all the change, all the, well, insanity. Four addresses, three cities, and two thousand something miles later I’ve already been over the good, the bad, and the ugly of this year with friends and family, so why do it again. It won’t serve any purpose, there will be nothing more to pull out of it that hasn’t already been yanked out. The closure has already been archived, the chapters written and read.

So, as far as resolutions? I think they are usually bunk. In the same way I think Valentine’s Day is a big sham, so do I think of New Years and it’s resolutions. Do I really need a specific day to do something nice for my someone special? No. Do I really think that overnight I’ll magically change something I’ve wanted to change and have it stick? No. Other than the month, day, and year on the calendar we’ll wake up and probably be the same people we are today, except with the possible addition of a significant hangover.

However, in the same way that I would never think of letting my significant other go empty handed on Valentine’s Day, I do have some things in mind for the new year, goals, if you would. Most revolve around lessening my financial debt. These goals were set months prior to this writing, mind you, but now that I am not facing moving again for a while, expensive plane tickets to fly back across the country, or all the credit card swiping that comes with the holidays, I can put some things in motion.

The biggest thing, as recreational and unnecessary as it was to do in the first place, is that I’m giving up track events this year. Figuring out that one weekend event at any one of tracks I’d like to go to costs almost as much as it does for me to autocross for an entire year made the decision easier. The Laguna Seca dream will happen, and it will happen in the R, but not in 2008. Reno, Infineon, they will have to wait. Thus, I also won’t spend hundreds of dollars on tires and brake pads, as what I have now will last through another year worth of autocross abuse. Yes, I will be autocrossing, and yes, as much or more than I did in 2007. What exactly will be the benefit of sacrificing track time? I’ll own the R outright by mid year. No more car payments after June. Yes, it will take more on a monthly basis than just the regular payment amount, so this isn’t some ‘oh, well, I just have to keep doing what I’m doing’ deal. Otherwise I’d still go to the track. Secondly, after that, Sallie Mae (grad school loans), I want them gone by the end of the year. This depends a lot on sticking to the first goal with the car, since the money freed up every month will enable throwing more to Sallie Mae and that figuring out the realistic goal of the end of 2008 factors in that extra money. There are other things besides track events that I plan to curb here and there but there’s no need to go into boring detail. Putting the big things down ‘on paper’ will keep me focused on accomplishing them and the smaller ones will fall in line.

So there it is, there’s my ‘resolution’, if you can call it that. Happy New Year.