Financial Goals for 2010

New Years Resolutions and Goals

Goodbye 2009, Hello 2010! The New Year brings both new opportunities and new challenges.

2009 Recap:
Daniel and I both graduated with our bachelor degrees. Yuppee! Daniel has applied to 4 veterinary schools, and so far has at least one interview. We made it through our undergrad debt free thanks to savings and frugal living.

2010 Goals:
I have been following Crystal’s blog at Money Saving Mom. They made it through law school debt free, and now they have saved enough money to pay 100% down for a house! We have been motivated by this success, and Daniel and I have a new long term goal to Get through Vet School Debt Free! I know that is huge, but I think we can do it- or get super close!

Since this is a huge goal with a lot of unknowns, we have broken it down a bit. Our New Year financial goal is to have 100% saved for one year of vet school by August. We currently have 29% towards our goal. Here are a few of our steps to help us accomplish this:

Careful Budgeting
We have always used an excel sheet for our budget. We have decided to upgrade to a free version of QuickBooks. This will make it easier for us and for our accountant. We will be able to precisely monitor our goals. I will let you know how it goes!

Minimize Spending
This means fully taking advantage of coupons & freebies. Our goal is to continue spending $100 a month ($25 a week) or less on groceries. As usual, this will include stocking up on both food and personal care products.

Menu Planning & Freezer Cooking
We want to take advantage of this time that we have and learn ways to make frugal living easier. If we master the lifestyle now, we will be able to continue it during hard/ busy times at vet school.

Investing
We are still working out the details, but we plan to invest our savings this year to help us reach our long term goal of getting through vet school debt free.

That is our plan in a nut shell. At the end of each month I will let you know how we are doing. Even if we do not get 100% of our goal, we will get a lot closer than if we did not even try! 
“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”
                                Les Brown

Have you written down financial goals for the New Year?