Personal Finance Goals

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-19-2003
Personal Finance Goals
3
Tue, 07-26-2005 - 9:27am

The net worth thread got me thinking...

I personnally take a little of Suze Orman's & Dave Ramsey's Beliefs to adapt my plan. Who's plan are you following? I am following DR with the exception that I do not feel its crucial to put $1000 into my emergency fund right at this moment. Why would I want to put money into a savings account and earn 3.15% when I pay 4%-7% on interest to my credit cards?
If an emergency comes up I will just use my already allocated "Snowflake" Budget to pay for the "Emergency". I also just set up payroll deductions of $20 a week until the cc debts are paid off to build ef slowly.

So here are my goals

Goal 1 - Pay off credit cards.
Goal 2 - Fully fund IRA. (We already contribute to DH 401K 7%)
Goal 3 - Build Emergency Fund. ( Probably about $10,000 liquid cash on hand at all times)
Goal 4 - Fully Fund 401K in addition to ROTH IRAS
Goal 5 - Start College Fund
Goal 6 - Pay off Mortgage (its a big one, so get used to me I will be here for years!)

Anyone care to add their goals? Hope I did not miss anything important.

Shannon

Shannon


Pregnancy%20ticker
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-19-2004
Tue, 07-26-2005 - 11:03am
1. Save $9-10k so I can buy a house in December or shortly after (this will cover closing costs and then I will do an 80/20 loan)
2. Pay off credit cards (around $7k) in 2006
3. Take 1/2 my excess monthly funds and put 1/2 into savings (emergency fund, increasing contribution to 401k) and put 1/2 towards paying down the 20% mortgage loan (it will be at a higher rate than the first loan)
4. Once 20% loan is paid, start a 529 college savings fund for dd and max out retirment savings up to government limits on my 401k and Roth IRA

Photobucket

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-11-2005
Thu, 07-28-2005 - 5:43am

Here are our financial goals

1) pay off husband's child support arrears (due to his illness it was pretty steep, but now is down to around $6700)

2) pay off huband's hospital bill which is about $4400

That we do with his disability, which his mom is takeing care off right now.

Now comes the European side of it all:

3) get the overdraft down (which is currently € 2300)
4) get credit card down to 0 (which is currently € 11059)
5) pay off a credit of € 12000

after all of that is paid off we will

6) save € 6000 for a car down-payment
7) save money for renovations and such for the house (probably 75 a month)
8) save money for vacations (probably 100 a month)
9) save money for tough times (probably 75 a month)
10) take out a good life inusrance on hubby (no, I do not plan on cashing in early :) ) so we have a nice nest egg when I retire and maybe up my retirement fund a little.
9) increase house-payments to get it done quicker (if that is possible).

That's the plan... hope it works out. Right now I'm just concentrating on all the bills and hope to have them paid off in 57 months, which is feasible, cause my hubby is done paying his stuff off in 16 months and then we are going to snowball it toward the credit card.

sushi

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-21-2003
Thu, 07-28-2005 - 8:33am

Hi there,

I don’t follow any of those mentioned plans – haven’t read the books either and stay away from the guide book section of my bookstore and library most of the time, too.

But this post and a few otherposts lately (e.g. the one about net worth) have made me think a bit closer about my financial goals, and how to achieve them. I am one of those who vote “I haven’t come to my financial sense yet” in that poll ;-)

My – rather short-term, compared to ther people’s goals… - goals:
1) Get my bank account back into the blacks, permanently.That’s 1,500 euros to go. Should be done by the end of October.
2) Pay back my credit debt: 4,800 euros at a fixed pace of 150/month. 32 months to go, but that’s fine with me.
3) Student loan at a minimum rate of 105 euros/month. Any additional ‘snowflake’ will go into this, even though it is at zero interest. Just feels better that way…
4) Build up a real emergency fund of appx. 1000 euros.
5) Find out how to make money by investing money, to build up reasonable ressources for later investment, be it a house or to supplement my pension in some later time.

It think that’s it :-)

Greetings, Jordis

ivy_jordis