Anyone want to set monthly goals?

[dr.girlfriend]

Thinking of another way this might keep this board interesting and us moving forward on our goals...I can post at the beginning of the month (if I remember) asking people one financial thing they want to accomplish that month, and then we can try to check in near the end of the month to see if we accomplished it?  For example, my goal for September might be nagging DH into changing his 401k allocation.  :-)  We can probably learn from each others' goals too.

[raangoli]

Sure!

My current MM-related goal is to not spend money on random shit. You'd think that would be a lot easier since I barely leave the house. But Amazon makes this way too easy to do.

[mommin]

I really should but I think right now my goals will look a little like this:
September- survive
October- survive
November- survive
December- survive

[ny96]

We’ve done really well with savings these last few months, but starting in September we go back to paying for childcare, so I need to stop buying so much random stuff on Amazon. I’ve purchased so much stuff lately I’m feeling a bit of shopping fatigue, which is not a good feeling.

[flygirl]

Yes! I need to think of something for August besides wanting to get my refi done

[ohgillian]

I'm in. I asked about quarterly tax payments the other day. My goal is by the end of Sept. to fully understand what they mean in context of my mom's financial situation.

[mlkgls]

I’m in. This month will be pretty basic, keeping up with tracking every dollar. The dust is still settling from a major home improvement project and I need to sit down and budget out the final payment, extended daycare costs due to virtual learning, along with daily life expenses. 

[sadlebred]

August-Pay for full exterior house painting including some carpentry repair work & staining the deck (done)
Sept.-Maybe pay for a retaining wall to be completely redone
Oct-Dec-recovery from house shiz

[melmel48]

I just ordered more masks from Amazon, but I would really like to stop shopping from there. I don't need 90% of the stuff I buy, and I am trying to pay off my credit cards.. I don't need to spend money on amazon!

[fryjack2]

We are doing a bunch of house projects this month. My goal is to hopefully keep the total for all of them under 20k. I'm not sure how realistic that is, but will try!

Another goal for this month is to increase monthly savings by at least 10%.

[aksinger]

I am a small business owner and just got approved for an $8600 state pandemic grant. I should get the check in a week or so. After saving 12% for taxes (per my accountant), I’m putting $4000 to fully fund my Roth-IRA for this year. And the remainder will go to our mortgage re-fi which will close in either September or October (thanks to everyone on this board also doing re-if’s!!!). Other than that, I need to cut down on extraneous Amazon purchases and start budgeting more carefully again. I expect to have less revenue in my business for 2+ years due to this pandemic, so even with a small windfall this month I need to keep an eye ahead to the future.

[aksinger]

I am a small business owner and just got approved for an $8600 state pandemic grant. I should get the check in a week or so. After saving 12% for taxes (per my accountant), I’m putting $4000 to fully fund my Roth-IRA for this year. And the remainder will go to our mortgage re-fi which will close in either September or October (thanks to everyone on this board also doing re-if’s!!!). Other than that, I need to cut down on extraneous Amazon purchases and start budgeting more carefully again. I expect to have less revenue in my business for 2+ years due to this pandemic, so even with a small windfall this month I need to keep an eye ahead to the future.

[chpmnk1015]

My goal this month was to refinance and we do that tomorrow.. going from a 30 year at 3.75 where we had 22 years left to a 15 year at 2.375%. payments are only 150 more a month. I still want to pay extra on even this each month but not as much as we used to.

Another goal is just watch spending in general and contribute $200 to each kids account this month

[Beeps (WOT?*)]

Aug 16, 2020 19:31:35 GMT -5 chpmnk1015 said:

My goal this month was to refinance and we do that tomorrow.. going from a 30 year at 3.75 where we had 22 years left to a 15 year at 2.375%. payments are only 150 more a month. I still want to pay extra on even this each month but not as much as we used to.

Another goal is just watch spending in general and contribute $200 to each kids account this month

We did that as well, shortly after the market crashed. Paid off our second and with the second gone (at 7.9% or some such) and the first went down about 2 percentage points as well. The difference in the rates will make such a difference!

The refi reduced our payments a smidge so we kept them where we'd been paying and as time progressed we upped the payments as our income increased. I've got a brag I'll be posting.

[ellipses84]

Sure! I have so many but I need to focus on fewer and actually accomplish them! I no longer have a DFSA but I still have money in my old account I need to be reimbursed for from early in the year.

[ohgillian]

Aug 13, 2020 16:29:41 GMT -5 ohgillian said:

I'm in. I asked about quarterly tax payments the other day. My goal is by the end of Sept. to fully understand what they mean in context of my mom's financial situation.

I already regret committing to this. 😂

[ssmjlm]

DH and I need to have another money talk. We have too much money in our checking account and I keep waiting for some sort of bill to show up because I can't figure out why we have so much.

So I need to rebalance our budget/allotments from our paychecks. We've increased car savings and general savings allotments, so I'm thinking maybe we increase our fun money a bit (although we're hardly spending any fun money at the moment.)

We also need to map out using the rest of our flexible spending. DH will need contacts, so that should be enough. Plus I need to send in some copays from earlier this year that somehow haven't hit automatically.

I think we may lose $150 of our daycare FSA. And that's after I stopped in mid-March once schools closed.

[farfalla2011]

I like goal posts! Especially since I've been finding myself on here more again

Right now, our goal is to not go too crazy with buying all the things needed for the RV we ordered that will be ready in Nov/Dec.

Also, get back to and keep with the meal planning each week so we're not grabbing take out so much.

[minzy]

I’d like to make some progress these next few weeks with helping one of my aunts get her will set up. My ailing uncle (her brother) asked me to take on the task, and I want to clear the issue from his mental load. I got the ball rolling last week... now to keep up the momentum.