Stage Blue--My Goals

Here are the goals that P and I set for ourselves at our First Friday Financial meeting. I put the goals next to my motivators. Not all motivators have savings goals. They will come more into play when deciding how to spend my money on my budget in Stage Orange.

When you create your goals, don't worry about how you are going to do it, just make goals and then we will figure the rest out, including time lines, later.

Family:
* Create a larger emergency fund of 10k & put it in an online savings account to get higher interest and also to make it harder to be tempted to access outside of an emergency
* Purchase life insurance
* Pay down debts using Dave Ramsey's Debt Snowball
* Pay off car
* Pay down the condo to get out from under PMI t
* Pay off the CC (only have new table purchase which is same as cash until Jan 2009--which means that if we don't pay it off by Jan 2009 that we have to back pay interest. We will pay it off well before that to avoid problems, but want to keep the $1200 in our savings account to earn interest until probably December...we will put it with our emergency fund so that we don't touch it)
* After emergency fund is created, we would like to start investing, but that's a long way off so we don't know about the specifics.

Adventure/Travel:
* Start a travel fund so that we can visit Europe in 3 years

Comfort:
* Save money for retirement--> P is already doing his 401(k) at 3% salary, which is his company's max match...I won't have mine start until mid March after my probitionary period is up. I would like for us both to have 4 or 5%, but we have to look closer at our budget for that.

Health:
* Consider buying more organic food, if it is in the budget. See what other food expenses to cut to make this possible. Also, eat less frozen/prepared food in order to cut down on the salt content. I would like to make a food budget, but P is not on board with this idea. More to come about that later.

Stage Blue--Defining Motivations

To be truthful, I've always been a list person. I like lists. I like jotting down everything in my head onto a piece of paper. Once it's on the paper it's not floating around in my head. Grocery Lists, ToDo Lists, Goals, Places I want to Visits, Things I Want to Do. There's something relaxing on finishing a list and seeing everything that was bouncing around inside my head in one place. It's steady; it's concrete.

You know who you are inside, but until it's on paper, it's sometimes easy to forget in the moment. Not that you don't know it anymore, but a lapse of judgment is so much easier when you have committed thoughts to paper. Heck, it's easy even when you have committed it to paper! But when you write it down, it's just harder to hide from.


That's why I want you to make a list of your own. I want you to make a list of a handful of things that are important to you and central in the way you want to live your life. These are our Motivations. These are what we want to use the tool that is money to fulfill. You can almost look at these as the opposite of the old reasons that we spent money.

No one can tell you how you ought to live. No one can tell you what your motivations should be or what things you should skimp on verses splurge on. All lifestyles cost something, which is fine. As I've said--money is a tool to get what we want. Before we can get what we want, we need to know the underlying motivations that determine what we want.

You just have to leverage your money to spend it on things, ideals, and values that are important to you. That includes saving it for future spending (such as a house, kid's college, or retirement)

Here's my list of what's important to me and what motivates me:
Family
Career
Adventure/Travel
Health
Comfort


What's on your list? Try to keep it to 4 to 7 motivators. Just remember, these aren't goals, these are just correct reasons to spend money. On the next blog we will learn how to align our money goals to these values/ideals.

Getting On Track--How I am Going to Fix my Finances

As I stated yesterday, I want to Fix my Finances. I know that I can't do this in one big swoop so I have come up with stages that I am going to follow to get myself on track.

Stage Pink: Where am I? (or figureing out my situation)
Stage Blue: Where do I want to go? (or what are my goals)
Stage Orange: What can I change? (or evaluating my budget)
Stage Green: What can I do to reach my goals? (or setting up for the future)

At first I numbered these stages, but I don't think these stages are the sorts of things that go step by step. I think that stages must be revisited on a regular basis.

Maybe once or twice a year you need to hit up Stage Pink to reevaluate where you are at financially and personally. Also, as life changes, so do goals--so Stage Blue will need to be hit up from time to time as well. A budget needs to have to pull and give so Stage Orange will probably be on my mind frequently. Also, as goals change what needs to occur to reach them will change. Stage Green also might be considered more and more as a portfolio grows.

ChickCents will work these Stages and will give a plan to obtain your personal financial needs. I am going to approch these stages as levels on a spiral going towards financial freedom. Depending on your situation, you might work through the steps in each Stage faster or slower than me. Take your time and have fun!