2008 Goals

This past weekend I sat down with my fiance and we discussed our goals for the upcoming year. We came up with a list of goals that we wanted to work towards together and then we prioritized them into order from most important to us to least for the year.

Goal #1: Our first goal is our wedding coming up in the Fall of 2008. Our date is October 11, 2008 and so that gives us about 9 more months to continue saving and paying for the wedding. Currently we have just under $2,500 in our wedding fund. We are putting another $250 in there that we recieved for Christmas. We have set up automatic deposits of $225 a month into the fund to save. We are also planning on putting our tax refunds into the fund. Any leftover money in our budget each month will also be put into the wedding fund. Our goal is to be able to pay for our wedding off of savings through the year and not have to tap into our emergency fund and house savings.

Goal #2: Our second goal for the year and a longer term goal is to save for retirement. My fiance will continue to contribute 5% to her work 401k. I have increased my contribution so that I will contribute 6% of my salary to my 401k. It is very important for us both to remember to keep saving for our future even though there are alot of current pressures to save our money for weddings and a house that we want to purchase. We have made the decision, however, that we will not compromise saving for our retirement.

Goal #3: Purchasing a house. We have decided to go ahead and look for a house this spring. If we find one that we like and feel we can afford then we will go ahead and make an offer. If we do not find anything then we will discontinue looking and rent for another year. We would like to keep our emergency fund above $15,000 after the purchase of a house. This means we need to not draw out any money for the wedding. This will give us a comfortable level to not worry about anything happening where we would not be able to meet our future mortgage obligation.

Goal #4: We want to ultimately bring our emergency fund equal to and over $20,000. This will equal about 6 months of current expenses for us. Currently, all our savings will be going to the wedding fund until the wedding. After the wedding we will be working on growing our emergency fund. The main objective with this goal is not using any of the money currently saved up for the emergency fund on the wedding.

Goal #5: Our last goal is to continue paying down our debt and eventually be debt free. Currently our debt consists of $2,500 in credit card debt, 2 car loans, 1 student loan, a 0% financing deal on some furniture, a 0% financing deal on the engagement ring, and a 0% financing deal on a bike. Our top priority is the credit card debt. We will be working towards paying this off as soon as possible and hopefully have it all gone by the end of the year. We are currently paying the car loans off each month with no extra payments. We are currently paying the minimum on my fiances student loans. We are currently paying the amount owed divided by the number of months to repay for the furniture, ring, and bike. The ring will be paid off this year. The furniture and bike next year. We are aggresively working towards paying off the credit card debt and then will work to pay down the car loans quicker.

These are our main goals for 2008. These are the things we want to accomplish and will keep our sights on throughout the year to work towards these goals.