We paid for this with CASH |
There are many things that I want to accomplish in my life. Starting the things listed below will only make life easier for the most part. When you look at my list below, I have 11 checks so far so I’m about half way done. Some things I partially do, but decided not to say that they are a “check.”
However, I do think I’m doing good with this list, there’s nothing I’d really change about what I’m doing now in order to have more “checks.”
Erika and Vanessa both shared a list of their financial milestones. Check theirs out! Below is my list:
- Finance a dream vacation…in cash. Check! I’ve paid for all of my vacations in cash. I went to Kauai in March and this was definitely a dream vacation.
- Pay off your student loans. I haven’t paid them off completely. I have paid some though, and I plan on paying for this upcoming summer semester completely with cash. This definitely requires some saving and buckling down this summer.
- Automate paying your credit card bill in full. Check! I pay my bill in full always.
- Get rid of all bad debt. Check! “Bad debt” depends on the person, but all I have are a mortgage and student loans. I consider these to be “good” in my life.
- Build an adequate emergency fund. Check! Our emergency fund is currently at $15K, we do want to take this and start applying it towards debt though. Our fund doesn’t need to be this high and could be better used in other places.
- Make your first, and last, investment mistake. I’m still making investment mistakes. I’m still trying to understand everything. I guess since I work in the finance industry, I am much more critical and analyze the market a lot.
- Develop a statement of cash flows. I do this in my head, but I’ve never written it down. Probably need to do this though. I always make sure there’s plenty of cushion in our checking account so that we never bounce anything though.
- Max out a Roth & Contribute to your 401(k). I don’t save nearly enough right now. This is something I need to work on, but I do want my debt to be gone quickly. Right now I save between 10-15% of our after-tax pay every month.
- Get a degree or certification that increases your earning power. Check! I’m about to get my Finance MBA. WOOHOO!
- Take a career risk. Never done this. I’ve only had 2 jobs my entire life. 5 years in retail management and 2 years as a financial analyst. Definitely no career risk there.
- Negotiate something. Check! I always negotiate on vacations. When I booked our Vegas Bachelorette trip for this August, I called many places and eventually got a great deal. I asked this to match a price I found somewhere else, and they even threw extras in.
- Earn your first side grand. Check! I’ve made nice side money from my blog, mystery shopping and surveys.
- Start a sub-savings account for an upcoming financial goal. I don’t have any separate accounts, but I do think this would help since the money would be separated from the other accounts.
- Set a target retirement date. This isn’t set in stone of course since we are still young. Hopefully around the age of 50 though. This most likely won’t be a complete retirement though. I still see myself doing some sort of part time gig when I’m older.
- Monitor your credit. Check! I check this all the time, especially since someone stole my social security number when I was younger. Things always tend to pop up but for the most part I am safe now.
- Say no to a financial salesman. Check! I’m actually pretty good with saying no. My friends and bf always laugh because I can walk away so easily and not care. In Kauai, some guy tried selling us a timeshare and after about 15 minutes of him talking, I looked at my bf and I could tell he didn’t want to be mean. So I told the guy no and walked away. My bf still thanks me for having no heart when we are around persistent sales people.
- Give just enough to make it hurt. We hardly give. We used to give around $100 a month to United Way, but we didn’t realize until now that they are extremely corrupt. So we have limited this greatly and now we only give around $20 a month.
- Invest $1 for every $1 you spend- in progress. Check kind of. We save around 50% of our after-tax income every month, and soon this will be much more.
- Start a 529 College Savings Plan. Ehh not really interested in this at all.
- Buy a house. This is something I just added (thanks to Work Save Live). This is a CHECK for me!
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