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I’ve been thinking about my financial goals a lot recently. Although my parents were always cautious with money, I always struggled with how to budget and manage my own money. During college, my parents used to sit down with me and help me create a budget each month. Month after month I could never manage to stick to the budget. It felt like unexpected expenses were constantly coming up. Over the years I’ve figured out what works for me. I have learned that if I set aside a certain amount of money into savings each week, I can spend the rest, if I want to.
I use an app called Qapital [not sponsored but would very interested in a collaboration 😉 ]. This app allows me to set up goals and specific rules to help me save money. I’ve created small goals [$150 for a Broadway ticket] and larger goals [$100,000 for a home down payment]. I love that you can set up goals with other people – Joe and I are both working on our home fund and emergency fund. My strategy is to transfer a certain amount of money into each goal every single week. I’ve set up rules, through the app, and money is transferred into my goals each week. I can pause the rules at any time and I can transfer the money out at any time. Currently I transfer money into my emergency fund, home fund, and Europe travel fund each week.
I’ve been figuring out what events to save for and how much to aim for. Without further ado, here are my financial goals:
Note: these amounts cover both Joe and I.
Emergency Fund: $20,000
Home Fund: $100,000 [this may need to go up; we still don’t know where we want to buy a house but we know we want to put 20% down]
General Travel: $5,000
Europe: $10,000
Retirement: Variable – we ideally want to start putting 15% of salaries into Roth IRAs and pre-taxed savings bonds
Is there anything else you think I should be saving for? I’d love the feedback in the comments below!
