As a follow up to my last post on my Goals for 2017, I invested some time into thinking about the specific things that I’d like to achieve this year.
Setting goals is something that I believe is highly beneficial for long term progress and achievement. I’ve rarely set explicit goals to be accomplished, however for this year I thought that I would add some. I have kindly been provided a template from earnest.com to help in my efforts to document these goals.
Investment Property
As I’ve mentioned previously, its our aim to diversify our investment holdings beyond equities and accumulate additional property ownership. To that end, we have spent some time searching for the right kind of investment property that would make sense for us. However a big part of making the investment property dream a reality is to be able to fund the required deposit. That is an explicit goal that we have set our sights on trying to achieve in 2017.
Maxxing out our 401k’s
I’ve talked about how instrumental our 401k’s have been in helping us build long term wealth. Fully funding these vehicles is an activity that I want to continue with in the medium term, and especially through 2017. Continuing to build wealth in a low tax manner through the power of deferred taxation on investment gains is part of what makes the 401 such an appealing vehicle. In addition, the forced savings that are enabled through the process also makes this worthwhile to pursue.
Keeping better track of our expenses
My wife and I have discussed having a better idea of where our money is going. This desire doesn’t stem from a need to track pennies and economize them, rather a wish to better understand our broad patterns of spending. I have kept this as a goal for 2017. It wil be interesting to see if this is something that we are able to follow though with. We have had a few false starts in the past in trying to achieve this goal that petered out because general life just happened to get in the way.
Bring Lunch to work!
Now while it may seem that this goal is somehow tied our desire to better track and potentially economize expenses, I’ve really set this as part of a goal to just try and eat healthier!. While I do try and seek out the better options in our cafeteria, I want to really try to focus on consistently eating well and eating wholesome, home cooked food wherever possible.
You can see the visualization of all of my goals below. Having a good idea of where your money is and where it is going is fundamental to helping you track progress and work towards more meaningful wealth accumulation. I’ll look to provide periodic updates on how we are in doing in working towards our various goals through the year.
My thanks to Earnest.com for helping to visually bring my goals to life! What are some of yours that you’re looking to tackle this year? Whether it’s refinancing a student loan or just budgeting for happiness, they can definitely help!”
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