Money Goals

ta78

I know we've talked about this probably multiple times before, but would love to hear everyone's money goals.

Hearing others always helps me get on track for my own.

Right now we are saving for half of our house down payment (the other half will come from selling our current home) and growing our efund to 3 months living expenses from 2.

brij2006

We're on baby step #2 of TMM.  So right now our goal is to be debt free from everything but the house. 

sparklerose

Saving for a house down payment, paying off our last cc, and finishing our efund...in that order. We did the Dave Ramsey thing as long as we could and paid off insane amounts of cc debt. We need to be in a different school district before DS goes to kindergarten, so we switched it up. We are comfortable with this, it's most important to us to be in one place and never have to change schools or daycare.

abrewer5

Right now my goals are to pay off credit card debts ($1,800), build a small e-fund, chip away at my car loan ($4,800) and then school loan ($11,000). From that point I'll increase my e-fund and start saving for a down payment on a new house!  

hoffse

Goal 1: get into a house by the end of the year.  We're probably going to wait until September to buy unless something really good pops up at a lower price point  before that.  Then we'd consider jumping early.  We have decided to sit tight on that house I love so much for at least a couple more months and then possibly go in with a low-ball offer and delayed closing.  We are very open to buying something less expensive (and less expensive to run!) if something else we like appears.  There are a couple we might be looking at in the next few weeks if they're around after H is done with exams.

Goal 2: Continue to save at the same level we're saving at now.

Goal 3: Put aside extra $$ for a house-designated repairs.

Goal 4: Prepay student loans with extra money leftover.

We're doing #2 and #4 right now already - but until #1 has happened, we're not sure how much we need to set aside for #3. 

lifeonthehill

I love reading these posts! I am a huge planner so I have a ton. But here is our list.

1. Save the last $1,000 into our E-Fund

2. Pay of H SL debt. Only $12,250 to go!

3. Put $3,000 into a Roth IRA for me (H already has a great 401k plan)

4. Save an additional $5,000 into our e-fund.

5. Save $10,000 for a new to us car. Once we start this we will start TTC.

6. Save our ins. OOP costs. $7,250

7. Save $5,000 to help cover us the first year I am a SAHM just in case

8. Save 5,000 for all things baby(stroller crib, etc.)

H says I am over zealous but we have done amazing things in the last 12 months and I am terrified of falling off the MM wagon. 

smbenevides1989

H and I are currently doing a few things at a time:

1. Pay off the rest of the credit card debt - ~$5000 - should be paid off within 3 months

2. Save for our Disney vacation in December ~ half saved/spent already, saving the other half once the credit card debt has been paid off.

3. Save an Efund and a house DP account at the same time while slowly building a travel fund. We would like to buy before my oldest goes to Kindergarten. So hopefully by next May/June/July.

4. Once I get into my house/furnish what's left/buy necessary tools, I'm going to work on saving for house maintenance, starting our Roth IRAs, and paying off the remainder of my student loans.

5. Eventually, I would like to conquer the car payments and then be completely debt free (other than the house) in 5-7 years. [this is my ultimate goal].

jessica490

1. Keep adding to our house DP (plan in buying in 2015)

2. Building our e-fund (we dropped to $9000 after H started school then dropped out, so I want that up to $20K before we buy a house in 2015)

3. Keep putting money into our vacation account so we can travel at least 2X's per year

4. Keep increasing our 401K's and possibly opening up Roth's

ashleyjesse1112

Our current goals:

1. Saving up for a down-payment on a house including closing costs so we can be competitive - hoping to buy a house very soon.
   
2. Add more money to our emergency fund.
3. Pay off my $10,100 in student loan debt (after we buy a house).
4. Once we buy the first house, have the emergency fund in place, and have the student loans paid off, we will start saving 15% of our income for retirement.
5. Pay off the house as soon as possible - hoping within 5 years.
6. Save up money to buy a second house in 5-10 years and rent or sell the first house.

IAmSherlocked

We have a few goals right now.

Ongoing - Continue to add to our E-Fund (we might need it soon--DH might be getting laid off)

Ongoing -  Continue to add to our retirement accounts

Short term - Finish paying off DH's Credit Card (should be paid off by the end of the year at the latest)

Short term - Put money away for school costs. DH is thinking about returning to school (at least his job offers a repayment program if you go back to school so we will be reimbursed for his tuition as long as he keeps his grades up).  

Mid term-Pay off the loan we got to replace all the windows in our house. It's got a 2% interest rate, but at the very latest it should be paid off in 2 years (I'm hoping for 1 year if I pay extra each month. I'm also hoping it helps our resale value)

Mid-term - Add to the baby fund. The whole baby idea is a toughie--I want to go back to school, but we've also decided that we would like to have one of us stay at home (either DH or myself) when we have kids and it would be nice to have money saved up. Even if I go back to school my income will probably be substantially less than DH's so it doesn't make sense financially for me to take out SLs if we're planning on having kids in a few years. I go back and forth on this all the time, and am not any closer to reaching a decision.

Long-term - Save up money to buy some land so that we can build our forever home. We're thinking in 5-7 years from now we'll sell our home, and we'd like to build our forever home. It coincides with when our possible future children will still be little but also when my mother will most likely end up coming to live with us, so we'll need the space. 

lifeonthehill

RockyMountainGirl88 said:  

Mid-term - Add to the baby fund. The whole baby idea is a toughie--I want to go back to school, but we've also decided that we would like to have one of us stay at home (either DH or myself) when we have kids and it would be nice to have money saved up. Even if I go back to school my income will probably be substantially less than DH's so it doesn't make sense financially for me to take out SLs if we're planning on having kids in a few years. I go back and forth on this all the time, and am not any closer to reaching a decision.

H and I have the same dilemma. The decision was for me to do school part time and ONLY if we can afford it in cash NO SL allowed. We wont put off TTC for my schooling but once a baby is born I will do online classes and hopefully be done with my degree or very close to by the time our kid heads to kindergarten. 

KatieCutie05

We're on the Dave Ramsey plan and I have 110k in student loans so thats our priority...we still have to pay off cars tho. Its taking rediculously too long.

brij2006

@katiecutie05 That is exactly how I feel right now.  We're on the 2 year plan to be debt free.  Now I'm trying to figure out how we can sell my car to get us closer to a year and a half, and I'm working like crazy to get some extra income.  It's taking too long and I want out!

formerlyGDaisy09

We've got several

#1: Student Loans I think about $50,000. I have $15,000, I asked H to please give me an up-date on his. H just straightened out his job situation, so we're planning to start paying those more agressively right now

#2: $12,000 in our E-fund, we're 25% of the way there, the last 2 months with H being short on work put a dent in that but we're getting back on track. 

#3: Finish the basement with a bedroom and a "bonus room" (still negotiating craft-room vs. man-cave) we got a $5000 estimate from my friend who is a contractor, $2000-3000 more if we want to add a 3/4 bath down there (up-flow toilets, showers, and sinks are apparently not cheap).

#4: pay off my car, we just purchased the car last summer, and our APR is really low, 1.99%, so it's low on our list right now...plus with the way interest tables work we've paid more interest this year than we will in subsequent years. 

We're on the slow and steady plan right now, however I'm done with grad-school in June and will have a good portion of my income back and get a raise in July, my boss is also negotiating a promotion with the institution I work for, FX but not counting on anything. 

Erikan73

Here's is my list, not necessarily in order. I was hoping to get this done within 5 years, but two years into the plan I'm thinking it may be more of a 6 or 7 year plan. In two years I will have two substanial loans paid off that will free up $700 a month which will then help finish paying off anything else we have left.

1. Working on paying of husbands past debts while staying on top current bills

2. Living within our means

3. Paying off credit cards & loans

4. Set up emergency fund (I have $1,000 in an emergency CD prior to marriage that I keep going. It's only a 6 month CD but the fees for early withdrawal would be minimum also my parents & a sister are both in a position that if I needed the cash sooner they would be willing to loan me the money with the understanding they would be paid back when the CD matures)

4. Working on retirement fund. Currently I have a 401k and a very very minimal IRA, but husband doesn't have anything set up yet.

SmrBrd2012

1) Buff up our emergency fund since a good chunk of our current funds will be gone at the end of June when we close on our condo. Luckily our closing costs will be half of what we planned for and our mortgage will be awesomely low so we can tackle all of our other goals relatively easily. 

Not sure about the order of priority for the rest of these yet but: 

2) Pay off new car loan of 10K that we acquired in March. Hoping to get rid of it by December if we are aggressive enough. 

3) Pay extra towards mortgage to at least get to 20% equity and get rid of PMI. We will be at 10% when we start. 

4) Pay off H's SLs of about 34K. This one will of course take some time. 

5) Save up for a cheapo car for me. Won't need anything fancy since I primarily take public trans to work. This is low on our priorities. 

6) Once we're comfortable in our new place and used to our new budget, we will probably start setting aside some $ for a baby fund while TTC.

hoffse

I can't believe I forgot to mention retirement.  That's just ongoing, though.  We save 20% gross before we do anything else.  I honestly don't care how many student loans we have - retirement always comes first.  We earn soooo much more in the market than we pay in interest on our student loans.  And if we waited until we were in our 30's to start, we'd be way behind and would be paying for it for pretty much the rest of our lives.

Credit card debt is one thing, but low-interest financing (like student loans, recent mortgages and recent car loans) is entirely different IMO.

Wulfgar

1.  We will have a bunch of medical expenses in December that we will have to save up for.
2.  We have about $44,000 in student loan debt, I only check my SL amount every now and again since mine are on automatic pay and my "highest" interest one is a little over 2%.
3. I have to pay off my suit which will hopefully be done by July.
4. We need a new roof and will have to make our attic into a living space in the next two years.
5. I just upped my 401(k) by a percent and lately my company has been doing between a 75 to 100% match on the first 6%.

Our goal is to have at least her SLs completely paid off prior to our son going to 1st grade.  We have three more years before that happens.  No matter what, both of our cars will be paid off in 2 years.

vlagrl29

I'm not in a huge hurry to pay off my student loan so that's low on the list and it's the only debt we have right now.

Currently our top priority is contributing to retirement and adding money into the savings for home remodels like wood floors and finishing off the basement, and one day getting a hot tub:)

Mom987

We are debt free but the house and contribute about 10% to retirement. I know we need to increase retirement but we are also enjoying paying down the mortgage.

HoneyBee973

Keep building our 'baby fund' and e-fund. Also save for a vacation. We are not taking a vacation this year. Buying a new car within the last couple months, we decided to pay extra towards the car. And also, keep putting money towards retirement.

Xstatic3333

Our main goals right now are saving up our DP, building our retirement contributions up to 15% each (I'm at 10 and he's at 9 to a pension fund currently), and paying off H's car. Secondary goals will be my car (less owed, lower interest , better car) and my SL (about 34,000 at 6.8%). We also budget for travel; I want to do one big trip a year until we TTC. Seeing the world is important to me and not something I want to put off until retirement. We're healthy and happy now, but you never know what the future holds.

mc0113

Thanks to our tax return, we just checked off our 12 months of expenses in an E-fund and paid off all credit cards!

Next up:

1. Pay off student loans - just under $25,000

2. Save up for a down payment for a home, so we don't have to use money from our e-fund.

3. Keep building our e-fund/savings since we just found out we're expecting and really want to be able to put $10,000 in a fund once baby is born and contribute each pay check after.

brij2006

@wulfgar Will you have a larger medical expense in December because of baby #2?

I've been thinking of you and your wife.  I hope you both were able to get some answers a few months ago with the testing.

uncreatedsnow

1. Pay off personal loans

2. Pay off car

3. Bump up Emergency Fund(at $1000 now)

4. Have a Positive Net Worth by the time I'm 30(Sept. 2015)

I have student loans but qualify for Public Loan Forgiveness(for now) so they aren't my priority for now.

vlagrl29

uncreatedsnow said:

1. Pay off personal loans

2. Pay off car

3. Bump up Emergency Fund(at $1000 now)

4. Have a Positive Net Worth by the time I'm 30(Sept. 2015)

I have student loans but qualify for Public Loan Forgiveness(for now) so they aren't my priority for now.

how did you do that?

KatieCutie05

How do people have such low interest student loans?! 2% like how is that even possible!!  Mine at insane... i have 110k in student loans - the lowest is 6% and thats about a whopping 15k of it - the rest is 8-8.5%! I don't invest in retirement because whats the point in trying to earn 8% when i'm losing it at the same time. All this crap about federal student loan interest rates going too high i want to smack the living daylights out of someone because even at what is supposedy too high now... is still lower then my lowest. But NO its not like they are going to let me refinance my existing student loans or anything. Ok sorry vent over.

vlagrl29

KatieCutie05 said:

How do people have such low interest student loans?! 2% like how is that even possible!!  Mine at insane... i have 110k in student loans - the lowest is 6% and thats about a whopping 15k of it - the rest is 8-8.5%! I don't invest in retirement because whats the point in trying to earn 8% when i'm losing it at the same time. All this crap about federal student loan interest rates going too high i want to smack the living daylights out of someone because even at what is supposedy too high now... is still lower then my lowest. But NO its not like they are going to let me refinance my existing student loans or anything. Ok sorry vent over.

I graduated in 2005 and consolidated all my loans with sallie mae at that point and the rate back then was 2.85% and it's fixed.  I lucked out and glad I graduated a long time ago.  I was talking to a nurse a week ago who told me the government passed something awhile back that made student loan interest starting at 6%.  Because my rate is so low, I'm not in a huge hurry to pay it off and would rather invest in retirement right now.

KatieCutie05

@brij2006: 2 years is really good! We're on the 5 year plan... we considered selling our cars for beaters but it just didn't make a large enough dent to make it worth it. Sometimes I really wish I could just stop caring.... ignorance is bliss.

hoffse

KatieCutie05 said:

How do people have such low interest student loans?! 2% like how is that even possible!!  Mine at insane... i have 110k in student loans - the lowest is 6% and thats about a whopping 15k of it - the rest is 8-8.5%! I don't invest in retirement because whats the point in trying to earn 8% when i'm losing it at the same time. All this crap about federal student loan interest rates going too high i want to smack the living daylights out of someone because even at what is supposedy too high now... is still lower then my lowest. But NO its not like they are going to let me refinance my existing student loans or anything. Ok sorry vent over.

I earned 25% in the market last year using moderate risk mutual funds.  That's a lot higher than 8%.

Honestly the point about investing in the market is because the biggest asset is TIME.  When you've lost the first 10 years of time, that just kills you in your 60's.  Even if it feels like they are dragging on forever, the student loans will be gone before you retire.  But your retirement money will still be growing, hopefully until you die.  Getting the seed money in place in your 20's is really crucial to knowing for sure you won't run out.

jessica490

hoffse said:

KatieCutie05 said:

How do people have such low interest student loans?! 2% like how is that even possible!!  Mine at insane... i have 110k in student loans - the lowest is 6% and thats about a whopping 15k of it - the rest is 8-8.5%! I don't invest in retirement because whats the point in trying to earn 8% when i'm losing it at the same time. All this crap about federal student loan interest rates going too high i want to smack the living daylights out of someone because even at what is supposedy too high now... is still lower then my lowest. But NO its not like they are going to let me refinance my existing student loans or anything. Ok sorry vent over.

I earned 25% in the market last year using moderate risk mutual funds.  That's a lot higher than 8%.

Honestly the point about investing in the market is because the biggest asset is TIME.  When you've lost the first 10 years of time, that just kills you in your 60's.  Even if it feels like they are dragging on forever, the student loans will be gone before you retire.  But your retirement money will still be growing, hopefully until you die.  Getting the seed money in place in your 20's is really crucial to knowing for sure you won't run out.

I agree with this....you should at least start saving a small percentage. If your company gives a match at least try to make it to that percentage....something is better than nothing, trust me!!