Second Goal

It has been a couple of weeks since I stated my First Goal.  So  I have been able to get a good structure on how to achieve that goal.  I worked with my wife and we have begun eliminating some of our less important spending.

So now is the time to begin on my Second Goal: to have a "good" credit score.

A couple of years ago, my wife and I went to a local appliance store to try to get a washer and a dryer.  We talked with their in-house credit department and were told that we were not going to be able to purchase a washer and dryer on credit.  To say that we were a little ashamed would be an understatement.  I mean, a washer a dryer is not a car or a major luxury for a Middle Class American.

I hate buying things on credit.  If someone does not have enough ready cash to purchase something, then maybe they shouldn't purchase something.  I say this but I have credit card debt; I have a car that I am paying a monthly payment on; I need "Good" credit.

I do not understand Credit Scores.  I know that not paying your bills will cause your Credit Score to go down, but what brings it back up again? For right now my goal is to do the following:

During the 2016 year, my wife and I will pay off at least 50% of our current debt and continue to pay our reoccurring debts on time.

I'll let everyone know how this goes.

First Goal

Welcome to the beginning. In my mind, the most important goal is to be Debt Free.  How many people can say that they have zero debt hanging over their heads?Well I want to be one of those people.  But as the saying goes, a goal without a plan is a wish and I'm done wishing.

For me this is how I plan on accomplishing this goal.  Dave Ramsey, financial guru and mentor, has the Debt Snowball Plan that he describes how to get a handle on your debt.  I plan on doing the same.   Not including my Student Loans, more on that later, I have approximately $5,000 in debt.  I plan on paying the smaller bills first. This will take me approximately 13 months to do this.



So what is my SMART Goal.  Well here it goes:  In order to become Debt Free, I will be using the Dave Ramsey Debt Snowball Plan, I will pay $5,000 of debt by December 31, 2015.

By paying off all of that debt, the only remainder I will have is Student Loans.  I have this covered as well.  I am a public employee and thanks to the Public Servant Loan Forgiveness Plan I will have all my student loans forgiven in a total of 120 payments.  I am currently on payment # 2, so I have some time to work on that, but it is a start.

Next time, on the Road to 50 %, I will be explaining how I plan to actually get to that 50% goal.



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Thinking SMART

So on my last article, I discussed some of my goals. I'm tired of being poor, so my wife and I am going to make a change. Today is the day that everything changes.

On my last post, I described some things that my wife and I wanted: to be debt free, to have a good credit score, to have disposable income, to own a home, and to own a farm. These are great things to want, but how are we going to achieve them? Just putting them on the Intarwebs and hoping is not going to make these wants a reality.

This is where being SMART will help us get to that goal.  For more information about SMART, please go to the SMART Goals Guide which is a significantly more in depth explanation than what you will read here. In general, SMART is an a acronym that helps a person write goals that focuses the method of the means in order to achieve a very specific end result. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time/Resource based. An example of a SMART is the following:

If I want to have an outcome of running a marathon, he would makes his goals by writing: in order to run and finish a marathon, I will run every week, three times a week for 13 weeks increasing the distance of running by two miles each week for the first 12 weeks. Then the last week will be the full distance of the marathon.

So is this goal a SMART Goal? Let us see. Is it specific? Yes, the goal is to run and complete a marathon. Is it measurable? Yes, you either run and complete the marathon or you do not. Is it achievable? Yes, unless I am physically incapable of running, completing a marathon is achievable. Is it realistic? Yes, in the same reason that the goal is achievable. Lastly, is it Time and/or Resource based? Yes, the enti.re goal should take 13 weeks to complete.

Now that we are I at an understanding about SMART goals, I will share with you my goals and how I plan to accomplish them on my next post.

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It begins.

I believe that our society has been lying to us.  When I was in High School, I was told that if I got a college degree then I would be guaranteed a "good" career, a home, a retirement, and stability.  When I graduated college, it was in the middle of the recession and none of those things occurred.

Years later, I find myself still living paycheck to paycheck, trying to make ends meet and my wife and children happy.  It's just too much.

In late 2014, my wife and I began to look at our future.  We came up with a few goals: we want to be debt free, we want a good credit score, we want to buy what we wanted, we want to be able to go on one vacation a year, we want to own a home, and finally we want a farm.

I started to put money in to peer to peer investing at Prosper which was a great investment.  I was seeing a 8.5% annual growth. I started to put money in Acorns and Stash monthly.  Then in August, my state passed some regulations on Peer-to-peer investing to those who have an annual income of $70,000 or a net worth of $100,000. It was as if my state is telling people that they cannot make money.  So now I have a new goal: hit the $100,000 net worth goal.


I started to roam the Intarwebs looking for ways to make additional money to savings tricks.  I found blog called Frugal Portland where they started a movement called the 50% Club. I read it and color me intrigued.

I talked to my wife and we have decided to try this out. My first goal was to find out how much we were actually saving each month now. So after doing some math, I found out that we are currently saving 9% of our income.

So now we have a starting point. I do not see us being able to get to the 50% mark this year, but we're going to try.

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