Struggling to be debt free

At the beginning of the year, I set some goals for myself.  Let's see how I am doing. 1. Add $10,500 to retirement savings with the goal of having $35,000 saved for retirement by the end of the year.  $5,500 will go into my roth ira and $5,000 will go into a taxable account. Come on stock market growth and no recession! Last year I contributed $9,500 so this will be an  increase of $1,000.  PASS.  I am done with this goal!  I have contributed $10,600 to retirement this year.  I plan to continue contributing throughout the year. 2.Increase EF to $18,500. I am slowly adding money to this goal.  My total emergency savings are about $16,800.  I hope to increase this over the next 3 months to meet this goal.  However, that might change based on what happens with hurricane Michael. 3. Pay an extra $290/month toward principal on the mortgage.  My easily reachable goal is to have the mortgage paid down to $200,000 by the end...

/ It's always something, isn't it? A few weeks ago I was driving to a mediation a couple of hours away and my tire pressure light came on and began rapidly blinking.  This happened to me once before and so I knew that it meant that the batteries in the tire pressure sensors were dead. However, last time the blinking went away on its own and I did not have to replace the sensors. Well, I wasn't so lucky this time.  All 5 of the sensors died (yes including the one in the spare tire).  I contemplated not replacing the them because my car is 12 years old and previously, I had driven a car for years without sensors in the tires.  The problem, for me, became the incessant blinking of the light on the dashboard.  It drove me crazy and I could not stand to look at it for hours at a time while driving around to different cities.  It's a dumb issue, I realize, but I just couldn't take it. So I coughed up $322 at the local discounted tire shop for new sensor...

Third Quarter Check I- this is totally late, I know.  At the beginning of the year I made several goals.  Let's see how I am doing. 1. Pay off student loan-DONE I paid off my final student loan in January!! 2. Increase emergency fund to $15,000- DONE I increased my emergency fund to $15,000 in Mid- February, however later I pulled money out to fund my Roth for 2015.  Last check in I had about, $14,000.  I am back up to $15,000 right now. 3. Save $2,000 towards a new vehicle- IN PROGRESS I have saved $1,440 towards my new car. 4. Begin retirement contributions and save $5,500 towards retirement- DONE-ISH I modified this goal to save $9,000 a year towards retirement. I have contributed $8,720 towards retirement.  Only $280 left to go. 5. Begin investing in mutual funds- FAIL I haven't started investing yet.  I modified this goal.  I decided to put $9,000 towards retirement this year.  $5,500 went towards my ROTH for 2015 and $3...