OK, I did very well with last year's goals. I slacked off after September, but the majority got done. My intent for this year:

- Fully max out my 403(b) account! $1375/month x 12 = $16,500 in retirement savings!
- Get the joint savings account fully re-funded (dipped into it for a car) and xfer the $$ to ING so it's less accessible.
- Start a Hills & Valleys account for DH's business.
- Pay $12K against the house principal.
- Prepay against the new car loan every time my personal savings exceeds $2K; try and get car paid off in 2.5 years, instead of 4.
- Get DH's term life policy extended/in place for the next 20 year term.
- Exercise more regularly.
- Purge stuff. Our closets are ridiculous (it's a 1923 house, but still!).
- Finish kitchen porch renovation.
- Get house closets re-done professionally.

Sandy, I am with you on the closets. I love my 1920s house and limited closet space is both a blessing and a curse. I didn't post my closet goal since its not really financial but I'm working on my closet, will move on to the other closets and plan to build new closets upstairs (which is part of my house/furniture savings goal).

Great list, Sandi. Is your husband starting a new business? Or just accomodating the the eventualities of business?

Sandy, your personal savings goal is way too low. I'd crank that up to 6 months worth of expenses before I'd fund the roof, car and vacation.

Dude, again, you're not reading for comprehension. Once the EF is refunded when the used car sells, we'll be back at 14 MONTHS of expenses in our savings. We currently have 4. And where in the h*ll did you come up with roof and vacation from my list? It's not there.

doo, doo, doo, doo.... Cue Twilight Zone music.

Sandi

Sandi, I somehow crossed posted my response to the wrong thread.

My apologies.

Regardless, no need to be so nasty...hope you go bankrupt very soon, you angry mean person!!

While I think it's a good idea to pay down a mortgage, I think that it is not a good idea to have almost as much going toward your mortgage as you're putting into retirement. I'm currently saving about $4,350/month into savings and retirement and $400/month toward the principal on my mortgage. Essentially, I'm paying toward my mortgage to take the place of the portion of my asset allocation that would go toward low-risk bonds.

Your allocation is the equivalent of 50/50 equities/bonds, which is probably a very bad idea.

Tazdollars, that's not the perspective I had, so I'm interested in a more thorough explanation from you...

Our mortgage payment (15 year, 4.25% rate) pays ~ $1100 per month against the principle, so that's the minimum. We're adding on an additional $200 per month to accelerate the payoff.

For the retirement figure, I only listed my contributions (not my husband's as well). So our total contribution is working out to:

$1375 per month 403(b).
$460 per month in SEP-IRA for DH.
Total: $1835 per month into retirement.

While I could re-allocate the $200 prepayment on the mortgage to stocks, to me the prepayment is a guaranteed return. One of my fundamental investing philosophies is to not put all our eggs into one financial basket...

I am afraid of redirecting it to the SEP-IRA, since it could exceed the contribution limits for DH, and we'd simply have to remove it at the end of the year anyway. If we established a SIMPLE plan at his business, I believe he'd be eligible for a larger contribution...but he's never had a SIMPLE, and he's leery of the administration and setup of it.

Any advice on that, given the additional info I've provided? Thanks.

Sandi

This is on auto-pillot, first month down...



Car is up for sale on AutoTrader.com and Craigslist...



Just transferred $3K into a new ING account for this today!



Again, on auto-pilot. We pay $800 per month in required payments against the principal, and then pay an additional $200. So the first $1K is paid.



No excess yet. To be continued...



He needs to call the company for this, during a weekday. He's in the field today, so I'll have to ask him later this week.



No progress on this, although I did clear off the elliptical.



Done! For the master bedroom closet. Three large garbage bags donated. Two closets left to clear out/re-organize.



Working on it. Materials not yet received...



This is likely to wait until September...

I like progress.

Sandi

Wow, great progress already. I've got to get going on this project too, so keep posting to get me going.

Thanks, Sam! And I didn't even mention how my mom and I spent 3 hours with a friend, helping her purge. Somehow, 2 hours with 1 person deciding, and 2 people sorting makes it go a LOT faster. We purged 5 boxes of recyclable paper for her, sorted a "happy" box of cards & photos, and another "unhappy" box of past-due bills and collection notices.

She's going in for major surgery next week, and we want her place to be a more serene place to recuperate.

So my advice, bring a friend along.

Sandi

Hi Sandi. Your goals all look great, except for one:



Strictly speaking, this is a poor goal, because it's not SMART. It's not Specific or Measurable. It's undoubtedly Attainable and Realistic, but it's not Timely. What kind of exercise - weights, cardio, or both? You want to exercise "more regularly" than what? Last year? When you were in college? Do you know how much you were exercising during the period you're comparing against, so you can know if you're meeting or exceeding your goal? If you do nothing all year, then join a spinning class in December, will you consider this goal as having been met?

I think it's a noble goal (it's one of my own, too, truth be told) - I just think you'll have a lot more success with it if you get more specific and set some time boundaries.

Good luck, I can't wait to see how you do!

Yeah, I've helped my Mom purge and it goes much quicker when you have an objective person pushing you along. She'll be here for a visit soon and I think I'll ask her to help me purge a closet.

Kombat, I agree it's not necessarily SMART when listed here, but in my head, it's laid out. I meant "more regularly" than 2009, when I had spinal surgery and was recuperating. I have an elliptical that I love (at home) and I'm restricted from weight lifting due to the restrictions I have post-surgery.

So:
Specific: Elliptical usage
Measurable: At least 3x per week, for 15 minutes each session
Attainable: Totally - I was doing 4-5x per week for 40 minutes/session before surgery.
Realistic: See above.
Timely: To meet this, I need to do this each week, not just lump it all in in December.

To date, I accomplished this 2x last week. On track to do 3x this week.

Thanks for the nudge.

Sandi

Nice job with the exercising.
I've been doing Jillian Michael's 30 day shred. It's so hard, but it's only a 20 minute video. If I don't have 20 minutes to spare (plus 10 changing into my clothes), I don't have anything. hee hee. I always treat myself to sitting on the couch for 20 minutes when I'm done.