Goals? What Goals? - Counting My Pennies

So I decided it was time to look back at my long-ignored 2011 Goals and see how I did, however inadvertently.

And guess what? I succeeded on all fronts.

Of course, my only goal was to start looking into a house and possibly buy one. Well, I managed to do that early in the year.

Victory! Seems a bit like cheating though.

So I guess I should do a better job of my 2012 Financial-related goals. I need to do a better job at sticking to my budget. I’d like to stay within my budget goals at least 6 months out of the year next year. I would also like to start setting aside money for a new fence. I need to get some furniture for the guest room so that I can actually have guests. Simple things, but important.

I do need a few more goals though. Time to brainstorm.

Megan Smith

Megan is a 40-something government employee in the Washington, DC area. She got interested in Personal Finance when she got out of college and realized that her paycheck wasn’t going to go as far as she had hoped. Since starting this blog, she has managed to buy a house and make a solid start on her retirement goals, and hopes to help others do the same. Here is her story:

In 2007, I was a gainfully employed 20-something with no debt but not a lot of knowledge about personal finance. It was a co-worker’s comment about Roth IRAs that sent me to the internet, searching for information. It was then that I realized that I really didn’t know a whole lot about personal finance and that my current financial situation was due a lot to inherent frugal tendencies, generous family members, a fear of debt, and good luck. While that was working for me, clearly I needed a better plan.

While I had no debt, I was also pretty much living paycheck to paycheck and not worrying about going over budget (I say this as if I had a real budget) because I had an emergency fund set aside to cover any overages.

Except that’s not what an emergency fund is for.

So I did a lot of research, read a lot of blogs, and decided that I needed a plan. I needed to budget. I needed to know what I was spending my money on. I needed to prepare for the future.

I decided to create a blog not only to make myself accountable to others but also to share the knowledge that I gained along the way. I’ve learned so much from my fellow bloggers, and I hope that my readers can find something useful in what I have to share as well.

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