{"id":1473,"date":"2007-11-29T01:18:00","date_gmt":"2007-11-29T09:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/getrichslowly.org\/blog\/2007\/11\/29\/setting-and-achieving-my-financial-goals\/"},"modified":"2018-11-21T08:32:58","modified_gmt":"2018-11-21T16:32:58","slug":"setting-and-achieving-my-financial-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/setting-and-achieving-my-financial-goals\/","title":{"rendered":"Setting and Achieving Financial Goals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For three years I&#8217;ve had a single goal directing my actions: I wanted to get out of debt. Now that my consumer debt is nearly gone, I&#8217;ve spent a lot of time <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/ask-the-readers-how-to-live-debt-free\/\">wondering what to do next<\/a>. I was worried that I&#8217;d lose focus, lose direction. That&#8217;s not going to be the case. I&#8217;ve set <em>three<\/em> major financial goals for 2008. After I pay off the last of my final loan next Tuesday, I intend to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Max out my retirement plan for 2007 and 2008.<\/li>\n<li>Pay taxes.<\/li>\n<li>Bolster my savings.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These goals are ambitious, but I think I can achieve them. In fact, I hope to do even more.<\/p>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Hiking can be a great, cheap activity\" src=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/iStock_rockymountains.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"200\" \/><\/div>\n<p><em><strong>Retirement<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\nI got a late start on my retirement savings. The box company has been setting aside a pension for me, but I only began my self-directed retirement savings last year. I managed to make the full contribution to my 2006 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/how-to-start-a-roth-ira-and-where-to-do-it\/\">Roth IRA<\/a>. I&#8217;ve contributed $2,000 so far this year, and intend to max out my plan by the middle of December. In 2008, the contribution limits on Roth IRAs increase to $5,000\/year \u2014 I hope to invest this amount.<\/p>\n<p>It wasn&#8217;t until I started writing Get Rich Slowly that I understood the value of saving for retirement. I&#8217;m now convinced that it&#8217;s the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/saving-and-investing-the-power-of-compounding\/\">most important financial move<\/a> a person can make. Even if you screw up every thing else, if you make regular retirement contributions, you&#8217;ll have a safety net at the end of your life.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Taxes<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\nLast spring, my accountant asked me how much I expected to make from Get Rich Slowly in 2007. &#8220;I don&#8217;t know,&#8221; I said. &#8220;Maybe $2000 a month.&#8221; It was a pipe dream, and I knew it. The site was only generating $1000 a month.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Fine,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We&#8217;ll set up estimated tax payments. Every quarter you&#8217;ll mail $1790 to the IRS, and $320 to the Oregon Department of Revenue.&#8221; I figured that I&#8217;d be overpaying, which would mean I&#8217;d get a nice tax refund. To my surprise, however, I&#8217;ve earned twice as much as I had hoped. This is a nice problem to have, but it also means that I&#8217;ve badly underestimated my tax obligation. I need to come up with about $8,000 by April 15th!<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Saving<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\nI&#8217;m a natural worrier. My <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/quitting-the-day-job-finding-the-guts-to-pursue-your-dreams\/\">upcoming transition to &#8220;professional blogger&#8221;<\/a> gives me plenty of things to worry about. I&#8217;m making enough to support myself now, but what if my readership declines? What if I lose the muse? To cope with possible problems, I want to build an emergency fund \u2014 an <em>enormous<\/em> emergency fund.<\/p>\n<p>In my dream world, I&#8217;d save $20,000 by next winter. Unless my readership doubles overnight, that&#8217;s not going to happen. I&#8217;ll keep that figure as an eventual target, but I&#8217;ll be happy to have saved $5,000 or $10,000 by the end of 2008.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Other goals<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\nThese aren&#8217;t my only financial goals, of course. I still <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/shaking-the-new-car-itch-a-tale-of-priorities\/\">dream of buying a MINI Cooper<\/a> \u2014 but I&#8217;m going to save for it. I also want to do some work on the house \u2014 paint the exterior, upgrade the electrical system \u2014 and to buy a Stickley chair. I&#8217;ll regularly set aside small sums of money for each of these things.<\/p>\n<p>Goals are crucial. They facilitate smart choices. When you know that you&#8217;re saving for a down payment on a house, it becomes easier to forego a new pair of shoes or the Justin Timberlake concert. It&#8217;s amazing the creative ways you can find to save money when you want to buy a new car. And when you finally make the decision to get out of debt, it no longer seems a hardship to shop at thrift stores or to cook at home. You come to recognize these things as a means to an end.<\/p>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Make 2008 the year to achieve your dreams\" src=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/iStock_mountaintop.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"385\" height=\"193\" \/><\/div>\n<p>As we approach the new year, set some financial goals. Set a short-term goal, a medium-term goal, and a long-term goal. Make your goals specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timed. If you do this, and if you keep these objectives in mind whenever you face a financial decision, I think you&#8217;ll meet with a level of success that will surprise you.<\/p>\n<p>See also:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/the-road-to-wealth-is-paved-with-goals\/\">The road to wealth is paved with goals<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/101-things-in-1001-days\/\">101 things in 1001 days<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/finding-purpose\/\">More on goals and the meaning of life<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For three years I&#8217;ve had a single goal directing my actions: I wanted to get out of debt. Now that my consumer debt is nearly gone, I&#8217;ve spent a lot of time <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/ask-the-readers-how-to-live-debt-free\/\">wondering what to do next<\/a>. I was worried that I&#8217;d lose focus, lose direction. That&#8217;s not going to be the case. I&#8217;ve set <em>three<\/em> major financial goals for 2008. After I pay off the last of my final loan next Tuesday, I intend to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Max out my retirement plan for 2007 and 2008.<\/li>\n<li>Pay taxes.<\/li>\n<li>Bolster my savings.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These goals are ambitious, but I think I can achieve them. In fact, I hope to do even more.<\/p>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Hiking can be a great, cheap activity\" src=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/iStock_rockymountains.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"200\" \/><\/div>\n<p><em><strong>Retirement<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\nI got a late start on my retirement savings. The box company has been setting aside a pension for me, but I only began my self-directed retirement savings last year. I managed to make the full contribution to my 2006 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/how-to-start-a-roth-ira-and-where-to-do-it\/\">Roth IRA<\/a>. I&#8217;ve contributed $2,000 so far this year, and intend to max out my plan by the middle of December. In 2008, the contribution limits on Roth IRAs increase to $5,000\/year \u2014 I hope to invest this amount.<\/\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3287,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[475,496],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1473"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3287"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1473\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}