Looking to Make 2014 The Year of Simplicity (and Build Wealth)
This year has overall been a good year for us, while we have had some setbacks and challenges, we’re grateful for what 2013 has brought us. Now it’s time to set our sights for this upcoming year.
Before we get into 2014 (next week!), I want to share our financial goals with you. Over the years I’ve found that writing them down and publishing them here have helped us stick with our financial plans. We’ve managed to get our wills done, updated our life insurance plans, bought a family car (with no car loan), and saved for a baby. It’s been wonderful reading your encouraging comments and seeing your own progress with building your net worth as couples.
Here is our short list of how we plan on building wealth in 2014:
- Pay off the student loan. I was happy that we chopped about 30% off the balance this past year, even with the hiccup of having to replace a car, but it’s time to get rid of this debt.
- Optimize our savings and investing by simplifying. We’re not just looking at consolidating our accounts, but we are focusing on making our money work for us even when we’re busy with other things (I’ll explain more below).
That’s it. Those are goals for the upcoming year. If we accomplish anything else, it will be icing on the cake.
Paying Off the Student Loan
As of today the balance stands $13,839.79 and we want to get rid of it by December 31, 2014. Looking at the numbers, we’re looking at a little more than $1,100/month that has to be directed towards it if we want to get rid of it next year. While we have wiggle room in our budget we do not have a grand laying around so we’re going to have make some changes which will include both cutting expenses while earning some more. The of us will sit down some time this weekend to figure that
First order of business – setting up extra payments scheduled and automated. I’m starting off with payments every other week. At end of every month, we’ll review to see if we can increase the amount.
You may wonder why I didn’t make digging through our budget the first step. We certainly will do some searching through the numbers this weekend when we go over the details of our 2014 budget, but for now, I want to get the system into place. It’s much easier to adjust the amount after you have already started than agonize on getting the perfect amount and then setting up a system. We don’t want to waste time, we want to build momentum.
I’m hoping that blogging about our progress on a monthly basis will help motivate us and keep us focused with getting rid of the student loan.
Simplifying Our Financial System
Basically the goal is to make it so that whatever kind of day we’re having, we’ll have money automatically allocated towards our goals. That means setting up and updating our automated deposits, payments, and transfers. With some of our monthly expenses decreasing or being eliminated, we can allocate the small difference for paying down the student loan.
Besides consolidating how many accounts we have, I’m also making some switches with how we bank, invest, and save. Earlier this month I closed down my Wells Fargo personal checking and made the leap over to Simple. Living up to their name, they’ve created a checking account that can help you easily save for some short term goals. I’m really happy with their service so far and I look forward seeing the numbers grow in my checking account.
Thoughts on Financial Goals for 2014
We’ve shared some of our goals for next year; I’d love to hear of some of your financial goals. What is the biggest goal you’d like to achieve?
