Update: 101 in 1001

It's been a while since I updated my list - haven't made too much more progress, but all three of these goals are biggies!!!

Just realize I have less than 6 months to complete the list - but of course, at the end, I'll just modify it to reflect new goals and cross off those that are no longer important to me. It's funny, I made this list over 2 years ago while I was on bed rest!

15. Finish basement renovation

Ok - I've mentioned this a few times on the blog already, but this was DONE on the last day of September and our renters moved in on the first day of October!!! This goal really deserves its own post because it is so spectacular - but I wanted to officially cross it off the list. (BUT, the laundry room is only mostly finished - still needs baseboards, paint and some decoration, so I added that to the bottom of the 101 in 1001 list!

43. Pay an extra $250 to mortgage principal one month

I one-upped myself with this goal - mortgage rates are sooo sooo low right now and because I work for a bank, I get some employee perks which made refinancing the perfect thing to do. I know you don't care about every detail of our mortgage, but we moved from a 30 year to a 15 year mortgage which will save us nearly $200 grand in interest alone. And, I accidentally achieved this goal by rounding our refinance amount down about $1500 less than what we actually owed, so in addition, we paid an extra $1500 (rather than just $250) to the principal at closing! Success! Yay for equity!

45. Get carpets and couches professionally cleaned

As I write this, Steve the Carpet Cleaner has finished the upstairs and the staircase and is working on the downstairs bedrooms. And the couches are up next. (I took "Before" pictures to compare to the result. They are too embarrassing to post on the interwebs!!!)

68. Re-read my massive Real Simple collection

Well, I sorta cheated on this one, but I think it still counts. Over the summer, we had a yard sale and I decided to purge the magazine collection. I don't know what my obsession with magazines is all about, but it was a painful decision!!! At the same time, there is absolutely no reason we needed an extra 200+ magazines sitting around the house (even though I had organized them in little holders in chronological order - that's about as OCD as I'll ever get!). I piled them all into a big basket and sold a whole bunch for 25c each...but had a lot left over. I tried to donate them to the Tree House (like a Ronald McDonald House) for families to read, but they already had a ton of magazines. Then I learned that the local library takes magazine donations and sells them to help keep up with general library costs. So when Mike was in town in August, we took the collection to the library (and each had to take about 3 trips to/from the car) and said SAYONARA to the collection. (Oh no - a whole bunch more are collecting in the house since then - but I promise to get rid of them soon!)