Financial Goals

January 1, 2011
New Year's Day 

My sister left me a check as a contribution to our family holiday gathering, which I had hosted for several years.  I was expecting $25, but when I picked it up I found it was for $100.  Thank you, Sis!  The kids are all home from college, I need to buy groceries and the car is out of gas. That hundred bucks will go quickly, but it will keep us afloat.

It’s embarrassing to admit that in a household with an annual income of nearly $75,000, we are starting the year with $7 in our checking account. And yet, I don’t feel our spending habits are anything to be embarrassed about, or that they are excessive in any way.  But I’ll leave that to your judgment, and hope that you’ll clue me in  with your comments. 

My husband and I have had a family budget and goal-setting session.  We are determined to make some changes, and given that our circumstances have changed drastically this year (as our last child left for college) we feel this will be an excellent time to  implement some drastic strategies for meeting our goals.

Our short-term financial goals include:

1)    Replenishing our emergency savings.

2)    Paying off medical and dental bills.

3)    Paying off Visa and Gecaf.

4)    Short-term savings for property taxes, vacations, gifts and home repairs.

Our long-term financial goals include:

1)    Paying off car loan.

2)    A larger emergency savings account to cover our higher medical deductible which was raised to $3000 last year.

3)    Saving for children's weddings.

4)    Investing more for retirement.

5)    Reducing our mortgage balance.

6)Helping children pay off college loans.

Obviously these are some very ambitious plans, but we are not expecting to be able to complete them all this year. I’ll be happy if we are able to complete the short-term goals and get a start on some of the others. I’m also hoping that the job market will bounce back in our area and I can get back to work, which will help tremendously in meeting our long-term goals.  

How about you?  Have you set financial goals for the year?  I ‘d love to hear what you hope to accomplish in 2011.