I just want to start off very quickly with a HUGE thank you. Whether you’ve been with me since M$M was started or just found the site last week, I appreciate you a ton. This site and the message of getting your financial stuff together is my absolute passion in life and I’m glad you let me yell at you about it. I wake up every day and enjoy this cool community I’ve somehow managed to create.
I wake up every day and enjoy this cool community I’ve somehow managed to create. Also – you’re part of an ultra rare group of humans that actually know how to SPELL “MILLENNIAL”. Who knows how much traffic I lose to that stupid word. *sigh*
What are your financial goals?
Since I’ve been running this site, I’ve learned three primary things about my readers:
- Millennials would probably throw themselves onto a grenade to protect video games.
- People don’t like being told they should have kids.
- A lot of my readers have crazy living situations.
Here’s the thing – I love that people read financial blogs. I was never really into them before I started M$M, so I find it freaking fascinating that there are so many people out there trying to learn more and get little nuggets of advice from people like me.
But…I always wonder why.
In my normal human life, I don’t get to meet a ton of people that are really interested in personal finance. It’s taboo AF to talk about money, so I guess I’m just curious why you guys ignore the taboo and share your financial stories with me.
So, I want to know about your goals. What drives you financially. Do you want to pay off student loans? Tired of the mortgage? Want to be able to make it rain?
Here’s why I obsess about money
(I use “obsess” pretty purposefully because it’s one of the only things I think about during the day).
I. Hate. Stress.
People that know me in person would probably be the first to tell you that I’m pretty chill. I don’t get too worked up about much, and I try my best to stay even-keeled. I just really really don’t like the feeling of being stressed, so I try to eliminate it in all areas of my life.
That’s why I’m good at $$$. I don’t get too up or too down, and I’m able to look past things that are happening to me now so I can plan for the future. I also know that if I’m good with my money, I can avoid stress completely sometimes by having the ability to write a check to make problems go away.
For example, Coral’s A/C compressor just went out on her car and it’s a million degrees in Houston. I will write a check to make that go away. Fin.
So that’s ONE of my financial goals: I want to have enough money so stupid crap won’t stress me out. I also want to get rich. And I want to make $1,000,000/year from this site. I could go on forever.
Questions for you:
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What’s your BIGGEST financial goal right now?
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How long till you get there?
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Just for fun…if you had unlimited money and could buy anything awesome, what would it be?
I would buy this so we could all party….on a boat.
My obsession for money started right out of college because I knew nobody was looking out for my retirement except me (can’t rely on the government). And retirement is and has been my biggest goal. I hope to get there in 5-10 years depending on how much cushion I want and if I decide I want a mansion… To throw awesome retirement parties in!
Man I’m the same way – no WAY am I going to rely on social security to retire. That’s cool – I’ve never really been one for the early retirement thing, but I understand it completely. I’ve always been confused because of Money Mustache if running a blog like I do is retirement or not…I mean…you still have to work to run these sites haha
I’ve always enjoyed the thought of money and what it can bring, but also how money makes the world go round, grows is used. I did maths and economics at university so I guess you can see how money and finance is quite related to both! For me the financial goal has always been to have the life I want, I mean the realistic one , not the ‘if I had unlimited cash’ one, without ever having to worry about money. So never worrying about my next paycheck or mortgage payment, being able to buy the stuff I love, travel the world without a second thought, and do the thing I enjoy knowing I could pack it all if I wanted. This hasn’t really changed. I think that recently, especially since joining the amazing personal finance community as a reader then blogger, this goal has been made to look more achievable. I can see clearer how I can get there. The things I’ll have to become good at along the way, and the things I’ll need to resist! So that’s mine.
And if I had unlimited money? Well it would be a lovely mansion on some exotic beach with an enormous collection of cars. Supercars, muscle cars, anything cool and fast, you name it and I would have it haha!
That’s cool – financial independence seems to be the big one for a lot of people in the PF community! I guess it would be pretty cool to just wake up every day and have your money working for you!!! I kinda like working, so I guess that makes me the weird one.
I really want to create and run a company that just makes a ton of money and see where we go from there. 🙂
Oooh, how fun M$M! Love these questions (and your future boat)! 🙂
My biggest financial goal right now is to have enough $$$ stashed so my husband can quit the 9 to 5. It can’t come soon enough for me. I know he has other aspirations in life besides sitting in a cube all day and I want him to be able to chase those aspirations asap. We are currently about 8 years out, though, and I would really like to see it happen sooner (I have a plan in the works…)!
Unlimited money? I have trouble spending it, so this is tough. Honestly, I’d buy a new RV and take an extended trip across the country!
Ha the boat looks sick right?!
Wow that’s such a cool goal – my wife basically helped me do the same thing when I had decided I wanted to leave band directing. Biggest gift she could have ever given me honestly.
An RV! Those are huge right now too, I guess it would be fun to live like Michelle with Sense of Cents …
Well, I’m getting married in a week and starting a new job/career shortly after, after being unemployed or underemployed for the last 2 years. So there are big changes coming!
My biggest financial goal is to pay off my credit card and then my line of credit. The wedding has inflated both of these, slightly – but I’ve basically been relying on this credit to live off because I couldn’t find a full time job for so long. Basically getting back to where I was financially before I was laid off is goal #1. Then we’ll focus on that pesky student loan and building up my savings.
I am not sure just yet how long this will take. Any money we get for wedding gifts is going straight towards this goal. And then when I actually an figure out my take-home pay when I start my new job, I’ll be able to figure out how much I can contribute each month. I suspect it will take a year, but I want to be aggressive with it!
And lastly, if I had unlimited money, I’d buy a big plot of land up here in Northern Ontario. At least 10 acres. And then get lots of dogs 🙂
Wow congrats x2!!!!! That’s awesome – glad things are going in a great direction for you. Getting married is fun, we just did it a little over a year ago 🙂
A year sounds like a good timeframe to me for all of that, I bet you’ll be super relieved when you get there.
Northern Ontario…sounds beautiful and COLD. I bet the summer is way better there than it is here though (1 MILLION DEGREES).
Howdy! I’m not even really sure when I got sucked into the PF mindset, but I think it was in October, when I moved a couple states over, in with my boyfriend. Even with his help, moving was really freaking expensive! Coupled with my habit of getting drunk and buying useless (but totally cool) things on Amazon, I not only had student loans, a loan with my parents but like 5k in credit card debt! When my car crapped out on me unexpectedly (well it was old but I stupidly figured I had more time to save), I had NO savings for a car. I had about 1k in my checking and maybe 1k in my savings. After taking on more debt from that situation, I really decided to get my butt into gear.
I started off the year with roughly 23k in debt and as of now I’m just around 14k. My goal? To get down to ZERO by 12/31/2016. Will I get there? Based on what I’ve done so far, maybe not. But even if I don’t, I put myself in a great position to knock it out in 2017! Plus, that will prove that I can totally max out my RothIRA and 401k once my debts are gone cause I’ll get better at this. Man, just writing out this comment has me so pumped about the future. I’m so glad I found blogs like yours because I really think it helped me focus a bit more on real priorities, vs getting sucked into what my peers are doing.
Gosh, I’m such a dork. If I had unlimited money, I’d A.) pay off all mine/my boyfriend’s debts (dur) and then B.) Take his house and the 22 acres it’s on(Why does he need that much land? Who knows), improve it, and make a really kick-butt doggy daycare. Or maybe like an animal hospice.
Samantha!!!! I literally started laughing out loud at your “getting drunk and buying useless things on Amazon” part.
Holy crap – 23k down to 14k is incredible! I know a lot of people who would love to have that kind of progress. Let me know when you get down to zero and I’ll give you a twitter shoutout!!! I’m hoping you get there soon. 🙂
Doggy daycare sounds awesome – animal hospice sounds super sad 🙁 I think you’d get along with my wife and mother-in-law well, they have volunteered at pet shelters forever. Definitely a valid/very cool thing to do for all the animals out there. Thanks for answering!
Really got interested in pf when I took a pf class my senior year of college and realized I knew absolutely nothing. Didn’t even know what an emergency fund was… I think my biggest financial goal will be to have enough money stashed away so I can do whatever I want with my life. I do not necessarily want to retire early as I would rather just pursue something I am passionate about than a 9-5 job.
If I had unlimited money it would be spent travelling. The experiences you gain from travel are something you cannot find by staying in your home country.
Dude Stefan I’m exactly the same as you – I don’t have a lot of interest in retirement right now. All I want to do is grow my business and this site as much as I can! I think it’s going pretty well so far 😉
Travel is a great goal, my wife and I are JUST starting to do that since we spent so much time not doing anything for the first years after college. We are more into beaches than anything else, but one day I’d like to do Europe and Africa!
My brother got me in to really being intentional with money after he took the Financial Peace course through Dave Ramsey (parents might as well have made it a requirement for my brothers and their wives). I wouldn’t go as far as to say I’m obsessed, but so much of my life revolves around being smart with the limited money I have.
I remember my parents (who were also great with money) being super generous whenever they could. I don’t even want to know how much money they spent on food trying to feed the small army of college kids that would show up for meals. My biggest financial goal is to get to a place where I can be generous – where I have so much that the only logical thing to do is to give. (I also will plumb in an espresso machine into my kitchen).
I know I’m ages away from these goals. I just started a professional program in school that will probably put me $120k in debt by the time it’s over. And paying that off is going to be a b***h. But I’m reducing my costs of living now, and plan on getting as many jobs as I need once school is done.
Unlimited money? All I want right now is my education and a fulfilling job on the other end. (And that espresso machine)
Chantelle – that’s an incredible goal. I love that idea…”My biggest financial goal is to get to a place where I can be generous”. Very profound 🙂
Espresso machine is ALSO a good idea haha. Good luck on the professional program – it may seem like it will suck in the short term but I’m sure you’ll get a kick@$$ return on your investment over the next 30 years or so!
I have a lot of financial goals, but my biggest goal is financial independence. Like others have commented, I want to build up enough investment/passive income to work only if/when I want to work. I can’t imagine not working, even in retirement, as I’m sure I’d be bored, but having options sounds pretty darn good right now. How quickly will I get there? The sooner the better!
With a limitless amount of money, I would, of course, spend quite a bit on myself and others. But to be honest, the most fun I would have with the money would be giving it away to others. I have a dream of putting a sizeable sum of money to good use in supporting a variety of organizations and ministries around the world.
Couldn’t agree more with Finance Superhero! Its not about money its about the freedom to do whatever, whenever you want. I’d love to have several real estate properties, investments, and website revenue be enough to pay the bills.
Great plan!
Ah one of the FI crowd! That’s cool – tons and tons of people are going for that one. Thats awesome that you’d spend money on other people! If I ever get super rich I’d like to start some kind of non-profit for something….just not sure what yet!
Our biggest financial goal right now is paying off our residential mortgage / debts, around £11,000 in total. Our mortgage will be gone by the end of this year, and the debt within 1-3 years depending on how much of our income we put towards it. We’ll still have a buy to let mortgage to pay off, but owning our own home at 36 will be worth having to be frugal for the past few years!
Unlimited money… we’d probably design and build our own house, it’s a dream of ours. Imagine the view you could purchase with unlimited money! We’d also stick with the current plan of doing as much travelling as we can.
Wow – 36 is really young for full ownership! That’s awesome. I’m with you on the house, one of my biggest dreams is to live in a bad@$$ mansion on a lake somewhere. We also would do a ton of traveling in the Caribbean!
I live in England and my financial goal is simply to have enough in investments such that the income from those investments will cover my living expenses. I’m saving like crazy (wish I’d done this sooner!) and have a fairly conservative asset allocation which means an overall withdrawal rate (or investment return when I reach FIRE) of between 2.5% and 3% depending on how I tweak the spreadsheet. Mortgage is paid off, so that helps, and I reckon I’m about 3 years from my target. I’ll probably succumb to OMY syndrome (or stuffing the mattress if you prefer) when I get to my FI figure. Maybe I’ll ask to go part time at work in the near future (if they let me), going down to 4 days, then 3 days etc so I glide into the world of no work rather than all at once.
We’ll see how it goes. But in any case, it’s nice to have a realistic plan and some options about when and how to pull the trigger.
England! (….are you guys OK over there? Brexit seemed like a big deal over in the states!)
3 years will go by in an instant Willy, it’s crazy. I like that plan of slowly sliding out of the workforce. Definitely a lot less scary than doing the leap of faith like I did! Good luck – keep me posted!!!!
My biggest financial goal right now is running a business. A little while ago, I almost had to move out of my rental. Looking for somewhere close to work that was for rent and/or rent to own that I could afford was a complete pain. Looking for somewhere close to work for rent that allowed pets was even worse. I want to open the business to help others like myself out and also to turn a nice profit. My goal is to be able to run this business without having to go into debt because if it were to fail and I wasn’t able to save it I would rather break even than owe money on a huge business loan. I’d like to have a few hundred thousand in the bank before I start working on anything; I’m also currently building my business plan for it. Hopefully I’ll be able to turn a profit on it before I’m 25 (6 years from now).
Man Michael that’s awesome. I think you’ll like the post I did recently on quitting your job to go after your dreams!
That was one of my goals as well – I started working for myself with no debt and it was very very helpful. Businesses rarely make money in the beginning, so not having payments is a major help.
Keep me posted on your story, so excited for you!
Just found your site after seeing a sponsored post of Facebook (hey it works!) I’m graduating college in December and love reading about at what to do with my money when I finally have a stable income. I’ve taken care of the basics: no debt, savings account, emergency savings, retirement account- so now it’s time to save for something fun! I want to take a year off and travel. I’m planning four years, that way I can get some “real world experience” and give all my accounts some extra padding. But if I had unlimited money I’d build some little igloo/glass/cabins in Iceland, live there, meet travelers, and eat excessive amounts of smoked lamb under the northern lights.
Haha that makes me so happy that you came from Facebook (it’s not cheap haha)! A year off traveling sounds great!!!! Maybe in a year or two when this blog is really churning we will do that! I’ve always wanted to sail to the caribbean.
Woah…smoked lamb. That sounds incredible.
My financial goal is to be able to get our finances sorted so that I don’t have to work a full-time job and place our child in daycare until they start school. I’m currently pregnant (due in February), so this is something my husband and I are just starting to discuss. I may have to work for awhile after the baby is born, but I’d like to be home by the time first words and first steps become a reality for us.
As for something fun and frivolous… I’d love to purchase season passes for four to the local theatre. This would allow me and my husband to attend every show, and also take friends with us.
Wow the local theatre – that’s awesome! Most people are shallow like me and want boats and stuff haha.
My wife and I have talked about the daycare thing too – it’s crazy how much it costs. It’s like you have to work just keep your kid in there! Really hoping we don’t have to do that, but I have a feeling since I can work from home I will be the daycare guy. 🙂
About a year ago we were in a similar scenario. Our kiddo was 6 months old, and we wanted nothing more than for my wife to begin staying at home by his first birthday. We were living off about 60% of our income, started a side business on Facebook/Etsy, and by Feb. it was making enough for her to stay home. By enough, I mean we went from saving $1000-2000/month to breaking even.
Things have picked up since then, but the decreased savings has absolutely been worth the trade off and potentially delayed FI. Keep with it! You won’t regret staying at home during the early years.
So I’m one of those readers that just found your site last week; quite literally. I was playing around with my retirement calculator available to me through my 401(k) provider at work. I had a mild panic attack when I figured out I need to do a better job of saving. So what’d I do? I re-evaluated my saving and spending and upped my contributions to my retirement because I can figure out how to survive on $50 less per month. Ok, so this has nothing to do with your questions… My biggest goal right now is to rid myself of my car payment and based on my math, I’m about 24 months away. And it only has 41,000 miles on it so I’ll be able to drive it for a long long time allowing me to work towards my next goal of earlier than planned retirement (we’re talking around 60 instead of 65).
If I could buy anything it would be a Dodge Challenger Hellcat. What can I say? I’m a motor head at heart.
Hey Dan!!!! Welcome and thanks SO much for commenting – that’s literally my favorite thing in the world when a non-blogging reader comments on stuff 🙂 Makes the site better IMO.
Congrats on upping your contribution – that’s the glaring bummer about being self employed (and healthcare). If I had a 401k I’d be all over that like you are.
Great job on going after the car payment, drive that thing into the ground! That is a sweet car btw.
1. Becoming financially independent from my primary job through our side jobs; woodworking & rental properties, with the ability to choose my workload and schedule.
2. Six years, but hustling with a furious intensity to make it happen sooner.
3. With no money limits, I still unable to go crazy. Mid-70s Triumph Bonnevile bobber motorcycle.
Those are awesome goals! I’ll have to check out that 70’s bobber…I have no idea what that is haha
1. My biggest Financial goal is saving enough to quit my job and pursue something I am truly passionate for – electrical design engineering a.k.a. Designing cool devices!
2. My wife and I are saving hard: maxing out 401ks and Roth IRAs!
3. If I had unlimited funds I would buy a cabin on a nice lake in northern Wisconsin. A nice fishing boat or pontoon would go well with that too!
1. DO IT! That’s what I did and it was a great decision.
2. Nice! 🙂
3. Fishing boat would definitely be cool
Make 5k a month from my writing/teaching (I am 20% there)
I plan to be there by December of 2017
I’d buy a planet! (This will be a real thing in a few thousand years, might as well get a head start!)
Haha nice! Very cool on the $5k – that’s great money!