Big Goals for 2008!

Posted by Madison on February 8, 2008

It’s February and I’ve finally decided on our goals for the new year. Last year, outside of our main dollar plan goal I made just one new years resolution: to stop couponing.

This year, I’m putting together a few more that I’d like to work on. Instead of rushing into them on January 1, I’ve spent some time thinking about each one and seeing how they fit into our overall plans for the year. In addition, we had to make some big decisions before I could see how our finances were going to fall into place for the year.

Since others like Consumerism Commentary and Gather Little By Little are already reporting on how they are doing with their goals, I should probably commit to mine! So here they are.

Our 2008 Financial Goals

  1. Meet our 2008 goal in our dollar plan; a 20.5% increase for 2008. Some changes to our finances this year may result in missing the goal. I’ve reduced our contributions so I could work part time for most of the year. In addition, our pension plan is changing this summer, so my cash value will likely decrease. However, I didn’t want to change our plan. I’ve added a secondary goal of putting in an extra $10,750 to make up for some of the shortfall I expect. We’ll tentatively earmark any raises we get to cover that shortfall.
  2. Make progress toward the long term goals in my strategy for working. Because they are two year goals, but they will not happen evenly over the two years, I would be happy with meeting a third of each figure in 2008. The two year goals are:
    1. Remove $1170 per month from our budget.
    2. Replace $800 per month in retirement savings. 
    3. Earn $830 per month from our new side business.
  3. Replenish our “baby savings.” I’d like to have $10,000 over the next few years. I saved up for my unpaid maternity leave and my 4 day work week through next fall. After I go back to work full time, I’d like to build our savings back up that I used while I was off.
  4. Introduce my 2 year old to money. Specifically his piggy bank, our local credit union, and begin teaching him about money. I’ve already begun as we’ve been working on learning the difference between pennies and quarters, filling his piggy bank and taking it to the coin counter at the bank.
  5. Pay off part of our credit card arbitrage with extra money. I’m going to treat it as a “debt” in my mind to try to pay it off. If successful, what I’ll end up with is a quarter million dollars in the bank unleveraged! I’ll start by committing $110 per month, for a total of $1,320 during 2008. I’ll add extra money here and there when I come across it. This is really just a glorified savings plan, but I thought if I put a different connotation to it, I might contribute more money to it.
  6. Invest additional money through investment snowflaking. My plan will be to split extra money between the baby savings, credit card arbitrage and investments.
  7. Work on developing a passive income plan.
  8. Updating our asset allocation to include more international funds. In addition, I’d like to optimize the funds for the lowest possible expense ratio by looking at ETFs and admiral shares.

In addition to our personal financial goals, I’ve come up with some goals for My Dollar Plan!

My Dollar Plan Goals

  1. Increase earnings. Earn $1,000 per month by the end of the year. In January I earned about $260 from the site. My interim goals are to hit $400 in February and $500 in March.
  2. Increase subscribers. Hit 1,000 subscribers by September 1. I included an interim goal to hit 500 subscribers by April 21.
  3. Increase visitors. Continue to increase visitors by 10% each month.

Action Plan

To be perfectly honest, I don’t know if I can really pull off all of these in 2008. Some of them have more laid out plans to achieve them, others are still in development stages. Throughout the year, I’ll be writing about how they are going including more of the plans to achieve each one.

This article is featured in the Carnival of Financial Goals at The Dividend Guy.





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Comments to Big Goals for 2008!

  1. Great list of goals and thanks for the link! Keep us posted on your progress!

    glblguy


  2. Excellent set of goals! You’ve inspired me to make mine more detailed:)

    nomorespending


  3. I really like number 4 on your list: teach children about money. You are right, it’s never too early to teach kids about the value to saving and investing since money is always limited (for most people)

    Sherrylove.net


  4. @ Sherry: I think teaching kids about money is one of my passions…. stay tuned for an exciting announcement on that very topic soon!

    Madison



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