This was originally going to be about “financial goals”, it was the title and everything. But I really don’t think there’s any point to having a “financial goal”. There are just things that I want to do with life, and finances are one of many tools at my disposal. Since I/we still have a long way to go until we are beyond mandatory work for money, finances are the first thing that come to mind. But these goals are barely even about finances.
Anyways, onwards…
For a couple of years now, I’ve been trying to save money, mostly just because the more money I have saved, the less I need to think about it. My partner has been doing it all along, but not suuuuper intensely.
Spend less than you earn, invest the difference. And my fiancee and I are doing pretty well with it. We’re definitely saving more than nearly everyone that we know. But we have never really had a serious goal. Something like, “We have to do X by Y date”. And as good of a job as we’ve been doing, I want to kick it up a level.
These are just my goals, but here we go, in order of importance.
Goals:
- Continue to build a stronger and deeper relationship with my love.
- Both of us to be able to stay home full-time with our kids before they’re 5 years old. When they’re 5, they’ll be starting school, and I want to be able to just hang out with them all day together before they start! So rough timeline here, if we have kids at 31, we need to be semi-financially-independent by 36.
- Own a home, of some sort, and fully pay it off quickly. Not having to pay for housing will be an enormous boost to savings, and greatly reduce the stress of needing to work.
- Build a community of friends in whichever place we end up calling home. Specifically to have people over for parties, board games, running, camping, hiking, etc.
- Start a company, or several companies, of my own or with friends. Hopefully while I’m still young-ish, because I don’t want it to affect my health too much. And it would just feel like a bigger achievement to me.
- Try to build enough of a wealth surplus to be able to help our families in their retirement.
- Race at least one full Ironman-distance triathlon before we have kids, and maintain my fitness up at a high level indefinitely.
- Eat healthy and high-quality food, giving my body whatever it needs to stay in top-shape. Greatly limit junk and alcohol.
- Continue creating artwork through photography, especially of beautiful and interesting places.
Each higher goal should be prioritized above the lower goals. I can work on multiple at once, but a lower goal shouldn’t get in the way of a higher goal. Obviously there will always be exceptions, like I would give up a tiny amount of financial freedom in the name of doing my triathlon goals, but I should be careful not to let myself spend so much time and effort on triathlon that it inhibits the higher goals.
How to achieve it all?
Having goals is great, but it doesn’t mean much if you don’t have a plan for reaching them.
I think the biggest thing is going to be the practice of eliminating things that don’t help with those goals. Like, nowhere in those goals do I mention going out to restaurants to eat. I still love going to restaurants for food, but I could do a better job of not going to restaurants, especially in the name of my other goals.
I think it’s important to have a balance and still do nice things like that sometimes, especially for acheiving my first goal of building my relationship. But I don’t think that working towards that first goal necessarily needs to come at the expense of the financial goals.
The better that I get at acheiving the first one, the less it will impact the second and third, and so on. And that applies to the other goals.