His, Mine, and Our Financial Goals
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Before coming up with a plan on how to reach our financial goals, it would make sense to take just a minute to write down and list what goals we have as a couple.
What we've noticed is that even though we may have individual goals, they are still tied to our team effort. I'll show you below.
His Goals
Right now my husband just has one money goal for himself.
- Walk Away Fund: My husband wants to have enough money to walk away from work if something happens. He is a software developer at a company that treats him well so he has no plans to quit his job. He'd just like to have the option to leave and have a cushion to let him search for a job at his pace rather than scramble for the first job open.
For my husband that means emergency fund can cover a job change/loss.
My Goals
For myself, my goal is focused on reducing our debt.
- Have the student loans paid off in 5 years. While the interest rate is low and the payments are certainly manageable, I just would prefer to have less overall debt.
That means we'd have to find ways to increase our payments going towards the loans.
Our Goals
Basically we have a couple of goals we'd like to complete in 5 years (September 2014).
- Own a house. We'd like to buy a house in the Raleigh area. Our goal is to get a a place that has a mortgage that is comparable to rent.
- Have no debt except for our mortgage. We don't want to have loads of debt whenever we get a mortgage. Currently we don’t have credit card debt or car payments. The only debt left right now is my student loans, which have a low interest rate.
- Have a steady mobile income of $50,000/year or more. We'd like to have enough income coming in from my work and my husband's side projects that he could quit his job and we could still pay our bills with enough money to still invest. Having less debt would be incredibly helpful with this goal as it would lower our monthly expenses.
We’ll be documenting our net worth progress regularly.
Just a Note About Us
I think at this point I need to make a confession – we’re not frugal people just to be save money.
We love saving money if possible, but not at the sacrifice of quality and time. Sometimes we will pay a bit more to save us a ton of hassle.
When we share some solutions that worked for us, don't be surprised if they are not the cheapest or most frugal option.
We're looking for ways that we can build our net worth and reach our goals without having to micro-manage. We want to do things we love rather than obsess over pennies.