Now that the second half of the year is officially underway, I thought now would be a good time to do a pulse-check on the 2008 goals I laid out for myself back in January. Personally? I think I'm kickin' ass!-*-$10,000 of my pre-tax salary went into my 401k.
This is well on track!
-*-My 401k portfolio is aligned and balanced towards my long-term goal of aggressive growth and diversity.
Yep! But as I mentioned in a previous post, while my portfolio is balanced and aligned, I've lost a significant amount of money because of it. I'm hoping this will all balance out over time.
-*-I've evaluated carefully whether or not to keep my Roth IRA with my bank or move it to another broker like Vanguard or T. Rowe Price. In the end I made the best possible decision that aligned with my long-term goal of growth and keeping my overall retirement portfolio diverse.
I ended up moving my Roth IRA to Vanguard who's fees are much lower than the bank I was with before.
-*-I contributed the full amount of $5,000 to my Roth IRA.
Done!
-*-I've stayed out of debt.
So far so good!
-*-I reached $10,000 in my unemployment fund, then put it in a CD-ladder.
Assuming all goes as planned, I will reach my $10k goal by August 1! I'm in the process of shopping for the best CD rates.
-*-My health care/deductible fund reached $1,500. That's enough to cover my deductible for the year and one hospital copay. Let's hope I don't need it! I choose to save my money this way instead of going with an FSA because if the funds go unused by the end of the plan year, I would have to forfeit them. This way, if I don't use them, I can put them in a high-yield savings account to earn interest and will be the seed money for the following year's deductible. Makes sense in my head, anyway.
Done! This year, my employer will be offering an HSA, which allows you to rollover any unused funds to the next year. I could effectively use this to save for medical costs for retirement. I'm in the process of researching if this would be of benefit to me.
-*-I set aside $1,000 for travel this year. Just in case. The only thing that may come up would be an extended weekend to visit a friend. If that money doesn't get used this year, it will be seed money for next year's travel fund.
Done! So that weekend with the friend hasn't happened yet, however I can tell you anything you want to know about Southwest Ohio thanks to a new long distance relationship I got into this year. ;) I haven't used the Travel Fund for that yet, but I will moving forward, as well as limiting my travel to keep costs low.
-*-I saved $7,000 towards the purchase of a new computer and kick-ass monitor.
Due to current market conditions and my new-found interest in possibly owning a home in about three years, I decided to retool this goal by increasing the savings by $1,400 and allocating $6,000 as my 2009 Roth IRA contribution and the remaining $2,400 to be used for a new, MUCH less kick ass computer or upgrades for the one I have now. While I'd love to have a new machine and monitor (I REALLY need a new monitor. Jesus Christ must have used the one I have now to research the ten commandments. Seriously.) it's just not as important to me as saving as much cash as possible. In three years I want to be in the position to take advantage of buying a home if I'd like. I know I'll regret it if I don't. Especially if the real estate market ends up tanking as much, and as long, as some people say it will.
So I'm pretty much on course. The big goal right now is finishing up my Unemployment Fund and staying focused and disciplined enough to save as much cash as possible by the end of the year. The current economic climate demands it.
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