Financial Goals for 2011

With the New Year right around the corner, I thought I would compile a list of what I would like to achieve financially.

1. Be rid of all credit card debt.
2. Earn $5000 in extra cash from side jobs.
3. Have $10,000 in non-retirement accounts.
4. Have $80,000 in retirement accounts.
5. Get total loans/debt below $200,000.

This will require some work on my part. We have to reign in our extra spending and work on creating some side income. I have some thoughts on the latter that I will share in the future.

New Goal for Paying off Auto Loan and Others

Back in April, I laid out our goals for paying off our debt. In there, I figured that after paying off the credit card debt, we could put all our resources towards the auto loan. The earliest I figured we could pay that off was August of 2014. Well, now that we have paid off the CC debt earlier, I believe that we can tackle the auto debt earlier. If all goes to plan, we will have it paid off by December of 2012. That would be welcome news, as we would then begin to tackle the 2nd mortgage.

By then, the mortgage will have about $56000 remaining. I would give us 3 years of accelerated payments to finish off that loan. That would be December of 2015. All that would remain now would be the 1st mortgage with $115000 remaining in principal. By throwing all that extra dollars($1350) into the principal every month, I see us paying off this debt within 3 more years. This means by December of 2018, the house will be all ours. This is one lofty goal, but if we can get back to two incomes next year, it will be totally doable. Also, I plan on working in some extra hobby income as well.

Mid December 2010 Update

It has been some time since my last update. I have been super busy and not had much free time to think about a post. Lots of stuff happening between work and home. We have made a big decision to use some of our retirement savings to level our debt. I know that this is number 1 on the list of things not to do financially, but with our situation (one income, mounting debt payments, chronically sick child), we felt this absolutely necessary.

Doing this is actually saving us money now, since we don't have a that 6% finance charge every month anymore. It is one less expense that we don't have to account for. Also, we are not having to set aside $380+ towards debt payment. It eases our monthly overage quite a bit, almost putting us in the black when we get some extra income in.

So with that said, here is our latest new worth statement.

So we see that our retirement accounts have taken a hit, but we have the up-tick in savings. Half of those savings will go towards finishing off the remaining credit card debt as well as another outstanding one. From here, we will see where our tax return and next years bonus put us. I would like to eliminate the auto loan next. Also, we hope to bring in some extra income with some ideas that I will go into later.