Post your financial goals for 2018

[JoeP]

Pay off our house, get the EF back up to about $15k.

[scfr]

For us, it's simple:

$1M in savings. We're at $800k right now.

As much as I love the straight-forward simplicity of your goal, I have to wonder how much it depends on factors outside of your control (specifically, the American stock market).

If the market tanks in 2018, will you be able to increase personal savings enough to offset any market losses?

[corn18]

As much as I love the straight-forward simplicity of your goal, I have to wonder how much it depends on factors outside of your control (specifically, the American stock market).

If the market tanks in 2018, will you be able to increase personal savings enough to offset any market losses?

Great question. I do my 5 year planning at 0% real return. My 5+ year planning at 6% nominal, 4% real returns. I do not try to forecast large movements. If the market tanks, I'll work longer. I run a 60/40 AA to mitigate some downside, but I sacrifice upside because of it. My 60/40 AA has returned $14.6% YTD across my $800k portfolio. 100% equity would be 20%+. But this also mitigates the downside. I picked my AA to hopefully keep me from making emotional decisions in a downturn. That's why I'm a boglehead.

For savings, I plan to save $148,000 annually until I become financially independent (FI) and may retire. My actual savings has been closer to $200,000 annually and depends on my bonus and stock options. If I keep up the higher savings rate, I will be FI in 5 years.

I do need some things to break my way to hit $1M in savings. Right now, I am planning to save the $148,000. In order to save more, I need to get a bonus. I never count on the bonus, but I always get one and very highly likely I will next year. That will get me to $1M in savings. As upside, I have been offered a promotion that will increase my base salary in 2018 and my total comp for 2019+. I also have my military pension that has no designated purpose right now. That's another $40k upside that will likely end up in retirement savings.

In summary:

$148,000 planned savings
$54,000 bonus net of taxes
$44,000 military pension (I pay taxes on this out of my salary)
$12,000 raise net of taxes

$258,000 total potential savings

I need $200k with no gains to hit $1M. So I guess I could handle a $58k downturn in my portfolio, which would be 7.25%. Anything bigger than that and I'll need a new plan.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

As much as I love the straight-forward simplicity of your goal, I have to wonder how much it depends on factors outside of your control (specifically, the American stock market).

If the market tanks in 2018, will you be able to increase personal savings enough to offset any market losses?

Personally I'm with Corn on the savings. So for us personally? I'd say a 6 figure rate of savings taxable even if the market tanks as long as I stop spending the way I have this year. I'm not sure I could make $1m in retirement funds next year next year but definitely by 2019 year end.

Now if the market turns south well we're younger than corn so we're doing a 80/20 AA with very risky investments and high returns. So I'm going to guess we could be hurting. If that happens we extend out our FI projections.

[Gailete]

For those of us who are not well on our way to having a million$$$ set aside for retirement, one thing I suggest is go make the effort to check your potential benefits at the SS website. I did for hubby last night and I must say that I was shocked. When we got them in the mail they were about as low as you can go when we first got married. I checked again yesterday what his potential benefit would be if he was old enough to retire or if he was disabled. His disability amount was up almost $500 than it was 15 years ago! I think if he could get on disability we, could survive on the amounts coming in especially if I can get the house mortgage paid off super-fast so that it and the rental property mortgages would leave us an extra $1100 to work with each month. Certainly, won't be in the lap of luxury, but doable. Even with the little COLA increases SS gives us and Medicare takes away. After subtracting the $27 increase I get from the increase in MC premiums, I have a whole $2 left over. I will be sticking it in our Christmas Club account which this year was spent on groceries.

If you haven't checked out your potential benefits and compared them to your regular living expenses now, you should so that you can figure out how much you really need to retire. It might ease your mind a bit, especially those with lower earnings and savings. Keeping in mind that even if you have some in an IRA, you most likely want to let it increase over some more years to increase the amount.

[breathemusic]

Ugh... all my goals are spending goals. LOL.

My partner and I want to re-do our stone patio and one of the flower beds to put in a garden. We have more smaller house projects that we'd like to knock out. I'm hoping to get proposed to, and then probably actually get married next year. And then we have a vacation membership (sorta like a timeshare but not exactly) that we'd like to pay off, in addition to actually booking a trip or 2 through it.

But really, the goal will be to do all these things and NOT deplete our savings. So just do it with the income that we generate throughout the year while continuing to contribute our usual to retirement.

Oh, and the biggest change of all being that my partner is trying to start up his own business and leave his current organization and convert them into one of his clients instead.

[ShawnaC123]

Pay $12,000 toward principal on my student loans. Should be fairly easy if I can stand to keep my second job for the whole year.

[scfr]

Pay $12,000 toward principal on my student loans. Should be fairly easy if I can stand to keep my second job for the whole year.

Great goal. It makes me think of Dee1's video "Sallie Mae Back."

[Like2Plan]

1. Continue contributing to 401K for DH and IRA for me.

2. Work out a 10 year Roth conversion plan. Most of our savings are in pretax retirement accounts. I want to do some conversions now so our taxes don't go higher when RMDs kick in (less than 10 years from now).

3. Reorganize investments for tax efficiency. For example: bond allocations in pretax, Equities in Roth and after tax.

4. Make a plan and save money for home renovations. We did new windows last year (finally). Kitchen and baths are next.

5. Figure out when DH will claim social security. Full retirement age or 70. (The closer to 70 we can wait, the better. )

[colby99]

Simple answer : To raise my net worth and how will I do that ?

pay off at least 50% of all my debts
Save before I spend & Balance my checkbook better than I did this year
Save 10% of all my earnings
Invest in a secret little thing I just found out about
Lastly to LIVE BELOW MY MEANS. I spent this year living within and that wasn't smart so now I'll live below them.
Great question

[moolahmonkey]

Pay off existing debt

I have about $10k in cc debt (down from $40k), and $3k in student loans. I'm going to pay these off this year and be debt free.

[comicguy]

New to the forum but have been doing some reading over the last 6 months or so. I figure if I put out my goals public then I will be more likely to maintain them.

Anyway, here are my financial Goals for 2018:

Eliminate last 900 dollars of student loans (tried to get this done in 2017 but just came up a bit short)

Increase DRIP stocks value to 5000
Current value 2100

Increase 403b value to 75,000
Current value 60,000

Keep Emergency fund above 10,000

Decrease eating out budget to: (1 morning and 1 evening per week + special occasions)

Continue saving 50/ week for vacation

Cut Discretionary Spending by 20%

[snafu]

Comic guy, welcome to SA.

Not questioning your decisions but wonder how many months of bare bones, basic expenses during a period of unemployment, EF covers. Personally, I'd use $ 900. and pay off SL by year end for the psychological lift! If employment is stable, replenish with sum used per pay for SL to minimum of 3 months expenses.

[snafu]

moolahmonkey, welcome to SA.

WooHoo, Paying off $ 40 K in debt is huge! What is the plan for remaining $ 10K + $3K SL? Your details can be very helpful to others who are trying to face down financail issues.

[Gailete]

New to the forum but have been doing some reading over the last 6 months or so. I figure if I put out my goals public then I will be more likely to maintain them.

Anyway, here are my financial Goals for 2018:

Eliminate last 900 dollars of student loans (tried to get this done in 2017 but just came up a bit short)

Increase DRIP stocks value to 5000
Current value 2100

Increase 403b value to 75,000
Current value 60,000

Keep Emergency fund above 10,000

Decrease eating out budget to: (1 morning and 1 evening per week + special occasions)

Continue saving 50/ week for vacation

Cut Discretionary Spending by 20%

You have some good goals there and it will be tough to do, but keep coming here for encouragement and ideas.