Ok, I'm a HUGE Dave Ramsey fan (since I read his book at the beginning of the month) and I'm now starting Baby Step #2! Yea me! I was just thinking the other day about my financial goals though, and decided to write them down! I need some sort of visual to help keep me on track to becoming debt free!

Here are my goals...

By the end of the year (5 mos from now) - 1 cc pd off, student loans pd off
1 year from now - other cc pd off
2 years from now - my van pd off + $8000 in savings
5 years from now - purchased my hubby a new car (with cash) + 6 months expenses in savings + working on paying off the house early!

They're kinda generic, but I love looking ahead and imagining how old the kids are when I have this stuff done, etc!

WHAT ARE YOUR FINANCIAL GOALS???

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WE'RE DEBT FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

Great post.
I finally got all cc debt paid off. Started with 1 card, paid that off then moved to the next one. I now want to start building up our savings plus putting extra money into the mortgage. I'd love to be totally mortgage free in 10 years.

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We are saving our emergency fund right now which we are going to use to pay off our furniture early next year. At the same time we are paying $900 monthly in CC so will be done at the end of this year. I hate debts and I want to get rid of them as fast as possible that way we can build up our savings again. Basically our goal is to be debt free and have money in savings. I can't wait

Good post, I agree.
My goals are:
1. One more CC to get rid of, will be debt free (as far as CCs go) by October of this year.
2. After CC debt is gone, will start saving for an emergency fund (while increasing my IRA deposit size), hoping to save as LITTLE as 4 months of income just in case.
3. Once the emergency fund is set up, will start saving for kids and to build a new home, literally as much as humanly possible, and then some.
4. Along with these, I'd also like to add a little bit to each of our vehicle payments and the mortgage, each month.
I have learned that realistic goals are best, I don't expect to save millions, but still. Another good topic.

Short term goals are to limit eating out costs.

We have our new furnace on 0% interest until may 2008, so we plan to get that done.

Our next goal is to invest enough so that the interest covers our monthly nut. That will take 9 years, so short term goals are to lower monthly nut!

another long term goal is to learn about and buy a rental property.

our short term goals are to squirrel as much away as we can to put towards building our house, which we will start in two months. Whatever we can save will be less mortgage we will end up with.
Longer term goals are:
5 years: have no mortgage for when DD starts school.
10 years: have enough investments to cover our living expenses. Similar to the pp.
But we also have a rule that we must remember to live, so a holiday every year, even just to the beach for a week or two is necessary to recharge and regenerate our lives together as a family.
Other than the mortgage we have no other debt, so that is our primary focus.
C

A few years ago, we hit bottom as far as finances go. We became a single income family with debts of a two income. I found out I was pregnant, so it made finding a new job impossible. Plus it would not be profitable. So, we swallowed our pride and started on a long journey. We moved in to an apartment. We cut our monthly bill as much as possible. I saw Dave Ramsey on Oprah and went to his web site. I found a debt negotiation company on there. We called them and put all of our credit cards in the program. We have two paid off now. We had to set up a payment plan for one other, and we have two still in the program. I think it will be six more months until we are done with the program. We still have one major bill that we will have to face in the future, so we are preparing for that. We are still living pay check to pay check, but we are in the green and not in the red. Which is hard with school starting soon and Christmas looming around the corner. I have picked up a few odds and ends jobs throuh family, so that helps a bit. I am proud of how far we have come, but I know we have a long way to go.

I noticed in an earlier post, lilligrace wanted to get into rental properties. I would like to recomment you read all of Robert Kiyosaki's books and audio materials. He is awesome. You can find them on ebay all the time. I really recommend the Choose to be Rich audio program. It is very good. It gets your mind focused on the future, game plans and positive thinking.