Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Time to get Serious

Its fun and interesting for me to discuss what is going on in the rest of the world, but its time to get serious about my own financial life. To start with, I need to set some goals, make sure they are measurable, and most importantly actually measure my progress. I've read and believed in the importance of writing down your goals, but I've never actually gone to the effort of actually doing it... until now.

I'll start with my goals this week, and over the next few weeks I'll post my debt levels, my net worth, and so forth so that I'll have a benchmark to mark my progress with. I'm not doing it to be boastful (and at this point I don't have much to boast over). So hopefully no one takes it as such. Perhaps it might help someone else to see the progress and be willing to take the same steps. Share your advice and perhaps we can help each other make this journey together.

My Specific Goals:


  • Apply for at least one job every day and hopefully be working as a full time accountant by the end of 2011. Starting this after this semester is over.
  • Buy 8000 WorldMark Credits by the end of 2011.
  • Increase mortgage payments in order to pay down the mortgage enough to have enough equity to put at least a 20% down payment on a $350,000+ town home by the end of 2012.
  • Invest $200/month for 4 years in order to start a home-based (non-accounting) based business when I'm done school.
  • Flip the spending circle, so that I save first and spend after. Including unexpected car maintenance, vacations, property tax, Christmas presents, etc.
  • Pay cash for my next new car.
  • Have no student loan debt by the end of 2014.
  • Have a single detached home by 2017 without selling the town home purchased in 2012.
  • Have the detached home above fully paid for by 2022.
  • Create enough passive income and wealth, that working becomes optional by the time I turn 45.
  • Retire at the age of 65 with 100% of my last years salary.

My Generic goals:

I believe that goals need to be specific to be successful. I have a few goals though, that I still need to nail down the details. So rather than leave them off the list entirely, I thought I would write them down here and recognize that some more work is required.
  • Write an accounting software package. For obvious reasons I can't go into a lot of details here. However, I still should come up with a reasonable time line. Is this just a hobby, or can this make money?
  • Travel the world. Go to places I've never been before, and revisit some of my favourites. I'm not talking about at the age of 65 either!!
  • Start a family.

I'm sure these goals will be tweaked and added to over time. I may also need to make some adjustments after I do some number crunching to see if these are all feasible. Any advice? Questions? Thoughts? Care to share your own goals?

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