T-2 hours

My pro photos are officially due today. They should be here in the next two hours. I hope.

In an effort to distract myself from the physically painful waiting period I've decided to let you all know about how our financial planning meeting went. The meeting was ok - it mostly focused on long term life insurance for Luis, which is kind of terrifying but also really boring. Basically we need to get him insurance that will give us what is essentially a "cash back" option that can we can use if he doesn't die.

The best part of the whole meeting was that it forced us to take a good look at our finances. We went trough credit cards, student loans, car payments, gross monthly income, insurance, and, most importantly, our goals. They are as follows:

Year one:
Ensure we don't have credit card debt (super super important)
Save money for a down payment on a house
Establish a good system for paying off my student loans

Year two:
Be living in a house we purchased
Be actively contributing to our savings and retirement plans
Save $$ for a big, international trip to somewhere (suggestions please!)
Buy Luis a new car

Year three:
Start saving for our family's future
Save a decent percentage of our income
Be comfortable enough to do house renovations
Go on a smaller vacation (beach house!?)

Ongoing goals include remaining "bad debt" free by paying off all credit cards and things like that very month and being focused on long term savings goals. Let's face it people! Pensions, social security, and basic retirement plans are shrinking down to nothing. They may not even be options for us. I don't want to burden our future children (at least not financially after we're retired, emotional burdens are likely unavoidable) and want to be independent and secure. Most of my grandparents are reaching some pretty impressive ages (90+!) so I'm thinking y'all could be stuck with me on this planet for a loooooonggggg time. I want to ensure that A) I die before Luis and B) no one is worried about how they're going to pay for my funeral when it does happen.

Moral Of the Story: get your shit together now so you can be a cruise-taking, Mercedes driving senior citizen in the future who has no mortgage and zero debts.

Here is one of my new favorite photos from the wedding: (thanks for snapping this Michelle!)