Comments on: Financial Goals for 2010

By: PennyStocks

PennyStocks — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 17:58:18 +0000

Great ideas.

I always pay a little extra off my mortgage as I don’t want it for the full 30 years. between the wife and i we have 200k in debt from school beginning to tackle this and stay afloat in life will be this years budget target.

By: Stew

Stew — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 15:29:55 +0000

Laura . . . it has to be his idea. :) Even with coupons and careful choices, it still costs around $30 for our family to eat out. If I spent the same amount in the grocery store, but brought it home to cook. We would eat far better and healthier and still reduce cost.

By: Laura

Laura — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 15:01:26 +0000

I love the eating out goal… any tips on how to get my boyfriend to contribute in the kitchen instead of just going out to dinner to make things easier?!

By: D

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 22:44:39 +0000

We started an allowance with our kids about 2 years ago. It truly has helped them to think about things. The key to making it successful is to make it clear what they are responsible for.

For instance, we pay for no outings unless they are with church or scouts. We provide no “spending money” at any event, we pay for none of their friends birthday presents, we pay for no splurges on specialty drinks (like sonic drinks) they desire when the rest of the family is not eating there too. At first they blew their allowance constantly. This drove my husband crazy, but I assured him that it was important to let the kids “splurge” now and pay soon. It wasn’t long before a friend called and wanted them to go to the movies and they realized they had no money. This is important to teach now than later. I would rather my kids blow their measley $20 allowance and learn at this age…then get their hands on decent paycheck and blow it because they did not learn the price of such decisions sooner.

Now they both work to always maintain some sort of savings. We do force them to save it least 10% in a long term savings account, however, this is not a savings for unforseen events..this is for college money or some sort of serious life event.

I still have one that saves a ton and one that tends to go down to a bare bone budget. But even the spender tries to maintain it least $20 at all times to cover the friend calling and inviting them over.

You goals look great :) Good luck!

By: Courtney

Courtney — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:59:11 +0000

Our financial goals are to max two Roth IRA accounts, save $25K towards our next house purchase, open a 401K account when I (hopefully) get a permanent full-time job sometime this year and contribute enough to get a full company match (or 5%, whichever is higher), and increase our total net worth to over $100K. Hubby already contributes 9%+5% company match to his 401K, and my student loans (~$5500) are on autopilot after consolidating at 1.75% last year.

By: Green Panda

Green Panda — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 12:46:29 +0000

I think you have some great goals for 2010. My first goal this year is to consolidate my student loans to a lower rate so I can keep the same payments, but off the debt faster.