Financial Goals 2008: May Update

I'm afraid my posting is going to be a little erratic this summer. Life's been really busy lately, especially with going on two vacations in three weeks! My husband and I have our weekends booked almost every weekend from now until July. At any rate, I'm definitely going to keep blogging, just at a slower rate through the summer. I hope you'll stick around :)

Anyway, on to the goals update. You can read about my 2008 goals here if you missed it. Here's where we're at as of May 1st:

1. ROTH IRA's. We're pretty well on track with funding our ROTHs. As you can see from the progress bar on the right, we have $2000 out of $8000 contributed. We're funding $250 each month into each ROTH automatically now, and I'll fund extra toward the end of the year.

2. New Car Fund. This one is also on auto-pilot. I just increased the contribution from $125 per paycheck to $150 per paycheck with my recent raise. Now if only the stock market would help us out! We have $1098 added to this account so far this year with a goal of $3900 added by the end of the year.

3. Emergency Fund. We have 36% of our goal completed on this one, so I guess we're a little ahead of schedule! We have increased our balance by $950 so far this year. Our goal is to have an increase of $2600 by year end.

4. New Siding Fund. This one has been interesting. My husband has decided he might want to paint the house instead of putting vinyl siding on. It's still very much up in the air, so I'm still hitting this fund pretty hard with extra money. We have a lot of other home improvement projects we want to do, so if the money doesn't get used for vinyl siding, it will get used for carpeting and bathroom cupboards and paint and a new refrigerator... the list could go on for quite some time! :)
At any rate, we've increased this fund by $2150 with a bare minimum goal of $4000 by the end of the year. Hey! I hadn't realized I was so far ahead of schedule! We've funded over half of our goal and we're only 33% into the year! Awesome :)

How are you doing on your 2008 goals?

Goals Mini-Update

I've had some recent successes and frustrations, so I thought it would be a good time for a 2008 goals mini-update! I'll just update on the areas that have had recent changes.

2007 Roth's are fully funded! I made the last contribution this week. I have updated the progress bar on the side to show the progress on funding our 2008 Roth's now.

We received our escrow check! Removing our escrow wasn't a 2008 goal, but I had $500 that I was able to put into our new siding fund as a result of closing the escrow account. That was an awesome unexpected bonus.

Our state tax refund hasn't shown up. This is the frustration mentioned at the beginning of this post. I was hoping that our state tax refund would show up in time to cover most of the federal taxes that we need to pay in. I've been checking the status of the state tax refund on our state's website, and it doesn't even show that they've received our return, even though I sent it in the middle of February. The State of Wisconsin did this to me last year, too, when I received my refund at the end of June! I think it's because of my HSA. At any rate, it looks like I'll probably have to take money out of our emergency fund to cover the federal taxes and pay the emergency fund back once the state refund shows up. Grrrr!

Things are going to be a little tight for the next few months because of two trips my husband and I are taking within three weeks of each other (one's a wedding). After that, no more expensive vacations for the rest of 2008. We need a break!

We Got Rid of Our Escrow Account!

My husband and I are not big fans of giving companies free loans. For example, we keep our tax withholding low so that we're not giving the federal government a free loan every year. Along the same lines, our escrow account on our mortgage has always bugged us because our mortgage company gets to earn interest on our property tax money all year long instead of us. Not anymore!

For quite awhile, I had been considering refinancing to get rid of our escrow account, but our fixed interest rate is as low as, if not lower than, any current rates out there. I wasn't convinced it would make sense financially to refinance.

Then, about a month ago, I read Prime Time Money's article about Saving For and Paying Your Own Property Taxes. PT suggested that his readers try calling their current mortgage company and asking them to remove the escrow account. It sounds silly, but I had never thought of that!

I was a little skeptical about my mortgage company, Wells Fargo, being willing to give up what was for them an easy money-maker. Nonetheless, I sent them an email asking about removing our escrow account. They sent a message back saying that we could do it if we qualified and that they would only close it out via a phone call.

About two days later, I received a letter in the mail stating that we qualified to have our escrow removed! My husband called Wells Fargo and asked them to remove the account. They said we should received a check for the balance in the escrow account within a week.

A week passed and our online information still showed the escrow account. Hmmm. I sent Wells Fargo another email, to which they replied that it was "processing". I'm pretty sure that meant that they had forgotten about it because the very next day our account showed that the escrow had been removed. Woo-hoo!

I did some math on the check we should be receiving this week, and the mortgage company was keeping about a $500 "reserve" in the escrow account. The amount I need to have saved for our property taxes (and insurance) at this point in the year is about $500 less than the amount of the check we're getting. That $500 will be going right into our new siding fund.

Thanks for the idea, PT. I owe you one :)

Has the personal finance blogosphere given you an idea that was able to save you money? I'd love to hear about it in the comments or, better yet, write a blog post about it!

Financial Goals 2008: March Update

I can't believe we're already two months into 2008! I thought this would be a good time to update you on our 2008 goals.


1. ROTH IRA's. As you can see from my progress bar on the side of the screen, my husband and I are really close to our goal of having our 2007 ROTH contributions maxed out. We are also automatically contributing to our 2008 ROTHs and have a balance there of $500 each. Our goal is to have $4000 in each of our 2008 ROTHs.


2. New Car Fund. We are saving for our next car in our brokerage account, which is invested in low-risk mutual funds. With additional investments and (amazingly) a little bit of market gain, we are up $389 in this fund since the first of the year. Our goal is to increase the balance by $3900 by the end of the year.


3. Emergency Fund. This is in a high-yield savings account. We currently have $525 added out of a goal of $2600.


4. New Siding Fund. As soon as our ROTHs are maxed out for 2007, I'm going to be working really hard on this fund. My husband and I also plan on putting our economic stimulus rebates into this fund since my husband really wants to put the new siding on by the end of the summer. We currently have $780 contributed of our $4000 goal.


So far, I'd say we're pretty well on track to meet our goals. How are you doing on your goals for 2008 (financial or non-financial)?

Raises and Bonuses

My annual review at work was last Friday, and I was pretty happy with my raise. I got a 6% raise, which is better, percentage-wise, than any of my previous raises in the five years I've been working for my boss. I was pretty happy with that! The extra money will be going towards our siding fund, of course!

My employer also decided to add a bonus program for my position. It's based on a combination of individual performance, company profitability, and tenure. I will be getting them three times a year (providing that my company is profitable) and my first one, which I got last month, was about $300 after taxes. That went toward our 2007 ROTHs, and future bonuses will probably also go towards either retirement or savings goals.

Yay for raises and bonuses!

What's the best/worst raise you've ever received?

Progress Bar

I want to send out a quick "thank you" to some people for helping me get my little progress bar up on the right side of the screen.

Thanks to Mrs. M&P for emailing the widget to me and thanks to my dear husband for tweaking it and helping me make it my own!

Now you can see how I'm doing with getting our Roth IRA's maxed out for 2007 before April 15th :)

3-5-08 Update: I've had someone get to this post from a search for "blog financial progress bar". If anyone out there would like a copy of the html coding of my progress bar, feel free to leave a comment with your email and I'll be glad to send it to you!

Jamaican Honeymoon: The Finances

As I mentioned in previous posts, my husband and I just got back from our honeymoon in Jamaica. We had budgeted $1000 in spending money, which I also mentioned in a previous post. How did we do?

Excursions: $590
Pictures: $40
Food: $10
Parking: $40
Souvenirs/Misc: $50
Cash for tips, etc: $70
Total: $800

To expound a little, the excursions were the reason that we saved as much as we did. We swam with dolphins and went horseback riding in the ocean, two things that weren't included in our package and were very pricey! They were worth every penny, though. Also, we nearly ran out of tip money. If you ever go on a trip like this, I recommend at least $100 (especially if your husband is a big tipper!) and make sure it's almost all in $1 bills :)

I was very happy to come in under budget, especially since I'm worried about getting $4000 into each of our ROTH's before April 15th. The $200 we didn't spend in Jamaica is going right into our ROTH's.

Financial Goals 2008

With 2007 quickly coming to a close, I would like to give you my financial goals for 2008.

1. ROTH IRA's. Having just gotten married in July, my husband and I are playing catch-up for our 2007 ROTH's. In July, we set up automatic contributions for his ROTH and increased the contributions to mine. By April of 2008, we need $2580 more in my husband's ROTH and $2380 more in my ROTH. We're hoping a tax return with mortgage interest and property tax paid on two houses until September will help us out with this. We also plan to put $4000 into each 2008 ROTH by December of 2008.
A stretch goal for us would be to put an extra $1000 into each ROTH for 2008, which is the new maximum. We both started saving for retirement at an early age, so we don't need to do this, but it sure wouldn't hurt!

2. New Car Fund. My husband is very adamant about never having a car loan, and I agree with him. We're planning on a "new" car in about 3 years, one that will actually be about 2-3 years old at the time of purchase. We currently own a 1998 Honda Accord (hubby's) and a 2000 Ford Mustang (mine!), both paid for. I think my car, though newer, will probably be the first one replaced. I don't want to even think about attempting to get a car seat in the backseat of my Mustang or fitting a stroller in my minuscule trunk!
Our goal for 2008 is to add $3900 to the balance of our new car fund. Since we'll want to replace my husband's car soon after mine, our stretch goal would be to add $4500 to the balance of this account.

3. Emergency Fund. While we currently have at least 6 months of living expenses in our savings account, we don't have that much of it designated as "emergency fund" money. Our goal is to increase this fund by $2600 by the end of 2008.

4. New Siding Fund. My husband bought the house we currently live in about two years ago, and the paint on the exterior is beginning to peel pretty badly. The house is big enough to raise a family in, so we decided that we'd like to stay for the long run if possible. Given that, we've decided that instead of repainting, we are going to put vinyl siding on the house. Though more expensive, it should last a lot longer. We haven't gotten a quote yet, so we're not exactly sure of the cost, but we have a general idea. We would like to put new siding on by the spring of 2009, sooner if we can save up the money.
Our 2008 goal is to add $4000 to this fund. Our stretch goal is to save enough to put the siding on sooner, meaning another $2000 saved. We'd also then have to have all of this saved before the snow flies here in Wisconsin. This makes our stretch goal read "to add $6000 to our siding fund by October of 2008."

I will try to give updates on these goals throughout the year. Do you have financial goals for 2008? If so, what are they? If not, below are some other blogger's 2008 Financial Goals. Maybe they'll give you some inspiration!

Click. The Good News
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Boston Gal's Open Wallet