Financial Goals for 2008

Since we’re just about to start a new year, I thought I’d write about our goals for 2008 as far as money is concerned.

• Max out our HSA ($5800)
• Max out my Roth IRA ($5000) and my husband’s traditional IRA ($5000)
• Pay off $5000 in principal on our HELOC

In addition to these very concrete goals, we’d also like to look into either siding our house or repairing/replacing our roof. Both of these things need to be done, although neither one is an emergency. We could repaint the house, but since we’re planning to stay here forever, we figure that siding would be a better long-term solution. So that will be on our list of considerations next summer.

Our financial situation is easier now that it was at the start of 2007, since we paid off the last of our business debt in August, and we’re going into 2008 able to save everything that we don’t need for day to day expenses. But when the baby is born, I’ll have to decide whether to keep working at the library or quit, and that will have an impact on our finances. If I stay, we’ll have enough money to easily meet our financial goals for the year, but I’m a little concerned that I might be putting myself in a more stressful situation than I want. If I quit, it will ease the stress level considerably, but it will tighten our money situation quite a bit. We’ll have to really stretch to meet our goals if I don’t work at the library for the second half of the year. I would continue to work as a sub, but that would obviously mean a significant reduction in pay.

For now, we’re going to focus on saving as much as possible over the next five months. I’d like to have the HSA maxxed out by June, so that we can move our focus to the IRAs. We currently have $200/month going into an index fund in my husband’s IRA – I might increase that to $400/month, so that we could automatically have $4800 in it by the end of the year. My Roth IRA doesn’t have an automatic contribution set, because I want to buy an exchange-traded fund with one lump sum of money at some point in the year.

Overall, I’m feeling really good about where we are. We’re happy, healthy, excited about the baby, and feeling settled and secure. We don’t have debt other than our mortgage, we’re living on less than we earn, and we have goals for 2008 that are realistic but at the same time will require a stretch to reach I like it that way. I hope everyone had a great Christmas, and here’s to a great new year!