In case anyone was paying attention, I completely skipped this feature last month. Vacations, sickness, and other things got in the way and I just decided to take the month off from an official update. But never fear, Financial Shape in 2008 didn’t go away permanently and with the dawn of September, here’s a quick look back on how we’re doing on our goals for 2008:
Here’s our update:
Short Term Financial Goals for 2008
1) Have our fully-funded emergency fund in place (6 months’ worth of living expenses) by the end of April. As of March 11, 2008–DONE!
2) Switch health insurance plans and open an HSA. We
were approved for our new health insurance plans in April and have also
set up our HSA. Done!
3) Start up an IRA and invest at least 5-10% of Jesse’s income in this. Started in March. (We plan to increase this to 12-15% of Jesse’s income as soon as we purchase our home.)
4) Open up a mutual fund for each of our children and invest $50 per child per month in it. Started in March.
5) Save up and invest $30,000 this year towards paying cash (100% down) for a house in 3-5 years. Now
that Goals 1-4 are finished, we’re working super hard on Goal #5!
The past two months have been much more encouraging for us–which was a real blessing after a few months of car problems, unexpected expenses, and medical bills. Not only were we able to purchase a new-to-us van (thanks to the payout from our insurance after the wreck combined with some extra income-earning things we did), but we were also able to build our six-month emergency fund back up, and put a couple thousand dollars in our house savings.
We look back and aren’t exactly sure how all of that happened, but we are humbly grateful to God for His blessing and provision! He never fails us!
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How did you do in July and August? Whether
or not you posted financial goals for 2008, please take a moment to
post about your financial successes and failures in July and August and the areas
you hope to improve in September. Then, come back here and leave your link
below. If you don’t have a blog or would rather share anonymously, feel
free to leave your update in a comment. Let’s all keep each other
accountable to be better stewards of
our resources!