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Financial Goals for 2018


mommyoffive
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DH and I do.

 

We rocked it last year and hope to keep up the momentum through 2018. I'm tracking all of our financial challenges and goals in my Bullet Journal. I love seeing the progress on paper. The instant feedback is great positive reinforcement.

 

I'm doing the 52 week savings challenge again this year. I loved doing it last year. Together we're trying to pay off one final bill. With DS's car accident on Monday, we are a bit apprehensive about the possibility of having to buy another car. We cannot do two car payments. We have the estimate for repair but are waiting to see if the insurance company says to repair or total the car. It's a 9 year old car with 165,000 miles and we have no idea what the final determination will be. As a result of the vehicle situation, DH and I may have to reassess everything else for 2018. Ironically, paying off the car was a goal for 2017.

Edited by Scoutermom
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We paid off all our SL last year.  All of them ahead of schedule by years!

 

 

 

This year this is what I have planned, I may add more later. 

 

1.  Maxing out every retirement account we have.  We have maxed out 2, but now we are doing all.  Kind of nuts?  Not sure.  I have played with calculators and we are doing fine.  If we do this it will be 40% savings rate and 4 times as much as they say we should save. 

I am feeling like we should use our money now and also that is good to save a lot because you never know. 

 

2.  Pay off my van

 

3.  Start my own biz and also a part time job. 

 

4.  Think about moving?  We have had this on our list for awhile.  But dh changes jobs and then where we should live changes.   Don't know when or if we will make this choice. 

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Pay off our car.  It is on schedule for December/Jan, 15 months ahead of time.  I'd like it sooner.

 

Put another 3 months' worth of expenses in savings.  Dh is a contractor and I'd like to eventually have a year's worth sitting there just in case. 

 

Increase contributions to 401k.

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Plans for this year:

 

1.  Not go back into the line of credit no matter what house repairs might be necessary (we are currently putting money towards major house repairs each week and since we have nothing planned for this year, this should work out even if something urgent and unexpected crops up).

 

2. Try to put an extra $300 towards the mortgage principal each month (on average, some months might be a bit higher).

 

That's about it.  

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I’m doing quarterly goals this year, so at this point, I only ha e the first two quarter’s planned.

 

Q1 - pay off one credit card balance, plus additional $1,000 in savings

 

Q2 - pay off other credit card balance, plus additional in savings (not sure of this amount yet)

 

I know the last 6 months will be focused on increasing our savings account. Dh has the possibility of making a job change, which would sigificantly help is to meet our savings goals. I’m waiting to see what happens before I commit on paper to what we plan for the last half of the year.

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We're on schedule to pay off our car in November. (Yay!) The ultimate goal is to use that monthly outgoing $ toward a minivan for me & DH gets my current vehicle. (His truck is ancient and on it's last legs.)

 

We have a pretty big credit card debt that is stressing me out (~$12K). Goal: to find a lower interest rate (transfer to another card or personal loan through SECU).  

 

We have a few home repairs that cannot wait.  Goal: Suck it up and do the minimal to fix the problem but save the decorative stuff for later. (ie. put down cheap linoleum after we repair a saggy floor, but save up to put down hardwoods in a few years).  I want to do it all right away, but that just won't happen and we keep putting it off...it needs fixing before we fall through this spot...

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- I want to pay off the last of two, small student loans.

- I want to decrease my monthly discretionary spending (less eating out, fewer decor purchases).

- I also want to pay off my CC ahead of our May move. I have vacation charges from last month.

- DH and I want to buy a second home this fall/winter and need to make sure our credit looks as good as it can.

- We’re hoping not to pick up a bunch of big bills (cable/Internet/phones) that are much smaller overseas.

Edited by Sneezyone
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I've been doing the uber frugal month too and that is helping me evaluate what goals we might have this year.  Hopefully in the next few weeks my husband and I can get on the same page for financial goals.

 

However, we are working on:

-Emergency Fund- We are about 60% there and hope to be 100% by end of May.

-Put another $2000 aside for house repairs that will be a must this summer- again hope to by end of May.

-Vacation fund- Need more money so we can get out of here!! :lol: I will put in whatever I can when I can!

 

In order for us to do these things I really feel like we need to be frugal as much as possible- but also not making my husband go insane!!

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Mainly our goal is to not borrow money for college.  So far we have been able to cash flow it, and I hope to keep that up, but with TWO in college in Sept we will see!  

 

We owe on one car (1% interest so we aren't paying it off early) and we owe about 1/3 of our house.  

 

1. Not start any new debt

2. Cash flow college 

3. Continue our savings and retirement plans as they are

 

My biggest concern is that things aren't going well with my parents an I may need to spend a bit going back and forth to see them.

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I'm working towards having a fully funded bare bones 3 month emergency savings fund. Bare bones means we could live off funds for 3 months but isn't our full pay check so I subtract the amount I put into savings, home maintenience, and other savings or sink funds. Hopefully, if something happened we would have some money in those other budget categories.

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Mainly our goal is to not borrow money for college.  So far we have been able to cash flow it, and I hope to keep that up, but with TWO in college in Sept we will see!  

 

We owe on one car (1% interest so we aren't paying it off early) and we owe about 1/3 of our house.  

 

1. Not start any new debt

2. Cash flow college 

3. Continue our savings and retirement plans as they are

 

My biggest concern is that things aren't going well with my parents an I may need to spend a bit going back and forth to see them.

 

Interesting thought.   Did you guys save for college? 

I was thinking about college the other day and thinking of the different ways people do it. 

 

Some save for it

Some just pay for it monthly when it comes

some pay off their debt so they free up their cash when the time comes

 

What other ways have you heard of? 

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  • 4 weeks later...

We paid off all our SL last year.  All of them ahead of schedule by years!

 

 

 

This year this is what I have planned, I may add more later. 

 

1.  Maxing out every retirement account we have.  We have maxed out 2, but now we are doing all.  Kind of nuts?  Not sure.  I have played with calculators and we are doing fine.  If we do this it will be 40% savings rate and 4 times as much as they say we should save. 

I am feeling like we should use our money now and also that is good to save a lot because you never know. 

 

2.  Pay off my van

 

3.  Start my own biz and also a part time job. 

 

4.  Think about moving?  We have had this on our list for awhile.  But dh changes jobs and then where we should live changes.   Don't know when or if we will make this choice. 

 

 

Anyone want to update? 

 

1. Done

 

2.  As much as I like to pay off debt, I don't know if we should do it.  The rate is 1.9%, we could probably do better in the stock market. 

 

3.  Haven't done anything 

 

4.   We would love to, but I don't where we would move to.  

 

 

I think I need to come up with new goals.  

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- I want to pay off the last of two, small student loans.

Three months to go.

- I want to decrease my monthly discretionary spending (less eating out, fewer decor purchases).

Done.

- I also want to pay off my CC ahead of our May move. I have vacation charges from last month.

20% complete.

- DH and I want to buy a second home this fall/winter and need to make sure our credit looks as good as it can.

Still searching for a home but credit's in great shape.

- We’re hoping not to pick up a bunch of big bills (cable/Internet/phones) that are much smaller overseas.

TBD.

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Our goal is to weather this unemployment without any significant long term financial impact. We’re almost at the three month mark and I think dh is starting to panic. If we have to move, it will take us years to recover.

I have a good part time job and he is still pulling unemployment, so we’re okay for now....

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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We are, for this year, generically trying to pay down debt.

 

My more specific goals (as the primary day-to-day money manager in the household) are to:

  1. raise our credit score to the next "threshold" number.
  2. cover our son's tuition in cash. (Because he's taking the scenic route through college, he will run out of the partial state scholarship at the end of this semester. Consequently, our out-of-pocket will go up at that point.)
  3. sock away enough to cover my own tuition for a pricey professional development program I hope to do this summer.
  4. keep making good progress towards being debt free within five years.

Thus far (knocking on wood that no disaster hits soon), I'm on track with #s 2 and 3. I figured out how much needs to go into savings out of each of my paychecks in order to make both of those things happen, and I'm actually ahead by a few bucks as of this week. 

 

#1 is slow going, but we had inched up a teeny bit last time I checked.

 

I was feeling good about #4 until my husband's car needed several hundred dollars' worth of repairs and opted to put that on a credit card instead of pulling from savings (matter of convenience). In theory, he was going to put an equivalent amount into the checking account so I could make a big payment, but that hasn't yet happened. So, we'll see how it goes.

 

Edited by Jenny in Florida
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I had financial goals that were moving along beautifully!  Now I have to make new adjustments.  :glare:

 

Dh has almost always had a company car and/or generous car allowance, so we really lucked out. But his current company is switching from company car to a car allowance that isn't quite enough to cover it this time. Plus, we had to put in the downpayment. It's definitely eating into my "snowball".  

 

On top of that, we're losing pretty much all of our health care premium tax credit, So it's time to look for additional ways to cut back if I'm going to reach my debt-free goal in two years, which is when kid #2 finishes high school. (With #3 right behind her.)  Sigh!

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Interesting thought.   Did you guys save for college? 

I was thinking about college the other day and thinking of the different ways people do it. 

 

Some save for it

Some just pay for it monthly when it comes

some pay off their debt so they free up their cash when the time comes

 

What other ways have you heard of? 

 

We did save, but just in an IRA, not a 529, and not nearly what we should have saved.  We have known a few people who got burned with the 529 plan (their child didn't go, or ended up getting scholarships, or didn't need all of it) and they had to pay a penalty to withdraw, so we opted not to do that.

 

Our original goal was (back when I wasn't working) to tell the kids we would pay for our local college ($7K per year) and pay cash as we went.  We had actually not counted on our oldest to go to college at all.  With LDs and Asperger's, we just didn't see him wanting to.  He hated school.

 

Then we saw that he was doing much better and it might actually be feasible for me to work again.  We decided that with my working, we could allow them to pick a college of their choice and use my income to pay for it.  

 

Now my oldest is away at a private school.  We are so excited for him!  And now middle is looking at going to a state school, but away.  It is doable with me working.

 

So, yes, we are cash flowing it, but with 2 in college, it will be a bit more than 100% of my take home pay, so we will have to figure something out.  We can either stop paying into our extra savings, or take out some small loans.  We aren't sure how it will all work out yet.  Middle starts in the Fall.

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Update: the insurance co decided to repair the car so that worry is gone. I also now have 4 details per year for as long as i own the car so that will nice. I've always been the one to detail my car and the prospect of having it done professionally every three months is nice.

 

I'm sticking with the weekly savings challenge.

 

We've had one hospitalization that zapped our HSA and left us with a large co-pay. That has put a damper on our efforts but it was necessary so we can't really complain.

 

We are getting the teeniest of tax refunds which is a bit disappointing as we were counting on a larger refund to help cover the medical bills and keep us on track with everything else.

 

We have two large bills looming on the horizon for this year.

 

So far, 2018 hasn't been kind to us financially.

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We did save, but just in an IRA, not a 529, and not nearly what we should have saved.  We have known a few people who got burned with the 529 plan (their child didn't go, or ended up getting scholarships, or didn't need all of it) and they had to pay a penalty to withdraw, so we opted not to do that.

 

Our original goal was (back when I wasn't working) to tell the kids we would pay for our local college ($7K per year) and pay cash as we went.  We had actually not counted on our oldest to go to college at all.  With LDs and Asperger's, we just didn't see him wanting to.  He hated school.

 

Then we saw that he was doing much better and it might actually be feasible for me to work again.  We decided that with my working, we could allow them to pick a college of their choice and use my income to pay for it.  

 

Now my oldest is away at a private school.  We are so excited for him!  And now middle is looking at going to a state school, but away.  It is doable with me working.

 

So, yes, we are cash flowing it, but with 2 in college, it will be a bit more than 100% of my take home pay, so we will have to figure something out.  We can either stop paying into our extra savings, or take out some small loans.  We aren't sure how it will all work out yet.  Middle starts in the Fall.

 

 

That is what dh thinks will happen.  But I figure with 5 kids someone has to use it.  Or you can just change it to grandchildren.  Or use it yourself. 

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