Ok! I did it! I made some goals!
It actually took me a couple of hours (and I still don't feel quite finished) but it was a super-good experience. Almost like therapy. I really got down to thinking what I want my life to be like now and in the future and started writing it all down. They weren't all financial goals, but the majority were, which is part of the reason why my goal-setting probably feels "unfinished"--there's more to life than just money! So, I'll keep working on those goals, but since this is my financial blog, I'll fill you in on the relevant ones.
The Vision:
I want to become financially secure by paying off ALL my debts as soon as possible,
living comfortably within my means, saving a regular percent of my income,
investing some, and donating some.
By now you've caught on that I'm religious, so paying tithing (10% of my income) to my church is important to me. Something else my church does is called Fast Offerings. It's where we fast for two meals (usually for 24 hours) and we donate the money we would have spent on food to the poor. Most offerings stay local and help needy families in the areas the money was gathered in. In the past, I've been the recipient of some of these funds, so I feel very strongly about contributing to this. I had always contributed offerings before, so I view this with a sense of karma. I donated when I could to needy families, so one day, when I was the needy one, there was some money to help me out too. Now, I hope I can just continue to contribute but never have to need any myself again. I'd be totally cool with that.
So tithing and offerings always come first, no matter what. That's the number one goal. What I do with the money after that depends on what my financial status is. I've made several goals for where I want to be in different stages of my life. In goal-setting, you should always start with the end result you want to accomplish and structure your goals to meet that end, so that's why I started with my vision statement up above.
So I started typing out all of my goals for this post, but it was getting a little long, and I wasn't really sure exactly how interesting all my own goals would be to my readers. I had them all listed by length of time: goals to reach within one year, three to five years, 5-15 years and 15+. I realized that a lot of them fall into different categories, so I'll just share the gist of my goals.
The first category is debts. My short-term goals involved paying off my credit card, with longer-term goals involving all my students loans and eventual mortgage. I want to pay them off as soon as possible.
Another area is my children's financial education. I plan on teaching them how to handle money at a young age and provide opportunities for them to get a handle on their own finances by the time they leave home. I also want to start savings funds for them for things like college, missions, or marriage.
The last area (not least) is in charitable contributions. I will keep paying tithes and offerings, but once I get more stable I want to donate to other worthy causes like education, women's rights, health, etc. My church has a program called the Perpetual Education Fund which provides interest-free loans for people who can't afford school, mostly in third-world countries. They pay the loan back when they can, and so far, most people have paid it back. I also like kiva.org (check it out!) that allows people to help fund beginning entrepreneurs all over the world. I've already donated $50 ($25 was re-donated after it was paid back), so I think I'll definitely keep that going.
What are your goals? Remember to think them through and organize them by time and don't forget measurability. Get them typed-up or written down, and put somewhere that you can review them often! Best of luck to me and you!
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