Do I really have to declare my goals for 2007?

I am so bad at setting goals. Who wants to calculate what's realistic and possible? I'd rather just take a stab at some numbers that sound good and cross my fingers and hope I make it. But I feel that it's somehow expected of me as a PF blogger to declare my goals for 2007, and analyze how I did in 2006. So here's my best attempt.

I really have come a long way. At this time last year, I was just starting to come out of the huge financial slippery slope caused by going from being Double-Income-No-Kids (DINKs) in a rental apartment with no car, to being parents, homeowners, car owners, and part-time workers.

Now, one year later, we are living well within our means (mostly) and saving adequately if not spectacularly. We've even managed to increase our income quite a bit, thanks to my partner's stick-to-it-iveness and all around kick-assability at his workplace.

Unfortunately, since I was a total slacker in the budget department for the first 10 months of 2006, I can't really give much insight into what we spent and why and so on. But I promise to be better organized in 2007 so there will be much more data to play with at this time next year. If, that is, I'm still blogging.

Let's see. I am going to take a stab at some goals.

Goal number 1
Change banks. I plan to leave our huge corporate bank by Feb 1 and open an account with the small, neighborhood, single-branch bank that opened last year near our house. I am on this big "buy local" kick lately and I really want to be as cool as Penny Nickel of Money and Values, who puts a big emphasis on community banking, so I'm going to try to bank closer to home.

Goal number 2
By March 1, I want to hit $50,000 in my Fidelity accounts, which will give me more account priviliges. I'm about to roll over a 403b to my Fidelity account. After I do that, my regular contributions to 403b plans and my son's 529 should bring me over $50K in the next couple of months.

Goal number 3
Rebalance! I finally got my asset allocations figured out this past year, and I'm planning to tinker with them after I recover from tax time. I guess I'll set May 1st as my rebalancing date. I'll see how close I am to the desired percentages and rebalance accordingly. By then, hopefully, I'll be over the $50K mark at Fidelity (see Goal 2) so the trades will cost me less when I rebalance.

Goal number 4
Be a better budgeter. I just finished my second month of my draconian budget method. It's called *gasp* the paper and pencil method. It's working for me very well and I'm even enjoying it. I need to keep it up this year, and hopefully enter my totals in Excel at some point so I can manipulate my data a little better than I can with paper and pencil.

Goal number 5
Okay, okay, here are some hard numerical goals. Totally unscientific. Don't know if I'll make it. But here goes nothing.
Increase my retirement savings from $40,571 to $46,000.
Increase my total household net worth from $110,270 to $125,000.

Goal number 6
Increase regular contributions to my short-term savings account and begin regular contributions to our Roth IRAs of at least $50 each per month, hopefully without decreasing 403b contributions.

Goal number 7
Quit my job.
What? Did I say that out loud? Seriously, when my partner goes up to full time in March, there's a chance I may be able to leave my primary job and keep only my moonlighting gig. A chance. But only if I tighten the belt a whole lot more. Also, if I do quit, I'll have to reconcile myself to giving up some fairly decent benefits, and most of all, to saving a whole lot less than we could if I kept both my jobs.

Goal number 8
Continue to donate at least $125 per month. If possible, increase percentage of total income we're donating from about 2.5% ($1500/year) to at least 3.5% ($2100/year).


Here's wishing you a happy, healthy, and financially solvent 2007. Let's hope we all shock ourselves by meeting and even exceeding our goals.


Related posts:
Reflecting on 2005, looking ahead to 2006
Year-end net worth report