Image courtesy of Jason Rogers

The other day, I posted the results of my 2008 Financial Goals. Since we are rocking our way into 2009, I'm excited to post my financial goals for 2009.
I'm pretty excited about my finances as we move into 2009. Things may look a little shaky in the market right now but it is important for me to remember these 2 things:
  1. I don't need the money in my 401k right now. I have years to make the thousands of dollars I've lost.
  2. As long as I have a job that provides a salary, I have the ability to save money.
What financial goals would I like to accomplish in 2009?

SGM Savings Challenge

In case you didn't read that post, my goal is to save up to $50,000 over the next 24 months. Why? I don't want to borrow money from anyone but myself. My target goal date is December 2010. I currently need about $28,000 to complete my savings goal. I'm not able to comfortably save $28k in one year so I decided to cut it in half and save $14,000 in 2009. I'll be providing monthly updates of my status.

Student Loan
My student loan is the last non-mortgage debt I have left. My plan is to pay off an additional $5000 on top of my regular payments. By the end of December 2009, I hope to have a student loan balance of less than $18,000. The balance is currently a little over $23,000.

Increase Alternative Income
This year, I was able to bring in around $6000 in additional income outside of my regular job. These funds consisted of blog income, ebay sales and online survey sites, etc. I am setting a stretch goal of earning at least $7500 in 2009 which means I would need to bring in roughly $600+ per month. I greatly appreciate any purchases you make through my blog.

Purchase An Additional Rental Property
Now is a great time to invest in real estate. Prices are low right now and I haven't seen any signs of a quick recovery. If I had enough cash, I could pickup several properties very cheaply. Right now, I'm actually looking at purchasing a renovated foreclosure near the Georgia Tech campus with an asking price of $24,900. This is unheard of in this area.

What are your goals for 2009?

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8 comments

  1. Anonymous // December 17, 2008 at 8:59 AM  

    Good luck with your goals! What a great example for others to follow.

  2. Anonymous // December 17, 2008 at 6:21 PM  

    good luck w/ your goals man.. and thanks for the reminder.. i need to start writing down what i want to do for 2009

  3. Anonymous // December 17, 2008 at 6:37 PM  

    Going to pay off a small line of credit, increase my monthly retirement savings plan ... and try to spend less!

  4. Anonymous // December 17, 2008 at 10:31 PM  

    I have a goal to save $4500 next year. I set up a new account via ING and weekly transfers. I think I can do it!!

  5. Anonymous // December 18, 2008 at 12:00 AM  

    Good goals, good luck with everything. Specially with this crazy economy.

  6. Anonymous // December 18, 2008 at 1:21 PM  

    hum....no goals yet really except to keep on blogging! learning alot so def. have to keep that up.

  7. Wendy // December 21, 2008 at 11:10 PM  

    I really admire what you're doing. Great job! I hope people are inspired by you and try to get debt free!

  8. Clairew // December 22, 2008 at 10:00 AM  

    New to your blog and just signed up for a feed, but was wondering if you use rewards checking accounts? I see your ads for the high interest savings ones (which I have) but just started rewards checking and now I want *everyone* to do it...

    I signed up through Charter Bank for their 6.1% APR interest rewards checking account. It is - so far - quite amazing and I now heartily recommend Charter as opposed to the dozens of others I looked at. The customer service is far superior to anything else I have seen at banks of late, and although you *cannot* call on weekends due to the bank's small size, they are excellent at responding promptly to emails, etc.

    More info on why I chose Charter and their requirements here. If you do want to do Charter, you should do so before February, when their APR will drop to 5.1% for new accounts.

    More information on which rewards checking account to choose here.

    I'll look around your blog a bit more because perhaps the answer is already here!