Mid-Year Personal Finance Checkup

Image Courtesy: john.d.mcdonald

I'm a little late (by about 2 months) posting an update on my 2009 Personal Finance Goals. I'd originally planned to do an update every quarter. As you can see, I failed to do so. This weekend, I had a chance to sit down and review how well I've completed my financial "to do list". Overall, I'm pleased with the way things have been going this year.

Here is a recap of my 2009 Financial Goals and an update of the status:

SGM Savings Challenge
My goal is to save $50,000 by end of December 2010. The goal was going pretty well until I had to withdraw $12,000 to refinance my mortgage. My home dropped in value so I had to pay closing costs and an additional $7,000 to bring my loan-to-value down to 97%. I'm currently at about $32,000 and hopefully, I'll hit $50,000 by the end of this year. I will more than likely be bumping up my saving challenge goal to $75,000. Here is the last update on the status of the savings challenge.

Student Loan
My goal was to pay an additional $5000 towards the principal balance of my student loan. This is my last non-mortgage debt that needs to be paid off. I've been making additional principal payments of $100 per month to try and knock down the balance. I haven't decided if I will go ahead and apply the extra $5000 since I am trying to work on boosting my savings account balance.

Increase Alternative Income
My goal was to earn $7,500 on top of my regular earnings from my job. Any additional income I earn comes from a combination of EBay sales, online surveys sites and blog income. The bulk of my additional income comes from the blog but the amounts have been a lot less than last year. Any purchase you make through this blog are greatly appreciated.

Purchase an Additional Rental Property
Earlier this year, I put in an offer on a property that I thought would be perfect. It seemed as if everything was going to work out until I was outbid at the last minute by someone with deeper pockets. The investor came in and bought several properties at one time. As they usually say, if something seems to good to be true, it usually is. I've decided to put this on the back burner for now.

I'm going to keep plugging away at my goals and hopefully, by the time of the next update, I'll have more positive news to report.

Follow along on my financial journey.