Tag Archives: Goals

What is Your Goal?

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I almost never mention my first husband.  It was a short marriage that ended decades ago, so it somehow seems like part of a different lifetime.

He and I differed on one very important issue, and I think that is what ultimately drove us apart.  We had different financial goals.  Or at least a different order in which we wanted to pursue them.  All of my life I had two primary goals: earn enough money that I don’t have to be dependent on anyone else, and own my home.  When we married, I had finished my Master’s degree and was started on my career as a financial aid professional.  I had achieved goal number one.  But I was living in a rental apartment.  A year after we got married, we moved to Chicago.  I continued working as a financial aid advisor (this time at a law school—I found my niche!).  He started attending law school.  Within a year of our move to Chicago I was looking at condominiums.  I still wanted to own a home.  He didn’t agree.  He claimed he didn’t want to make that kind of commitment to Chicago.  And that was the beginning of the end.

Ultimately, we divorced.  And a year later I bought a condo in Chicago. A studio was all I could afford, but who needs a bedroom when you have a 27th floor lake view?  It was all mine. And I loved it.  My home, my mortgage, and my rules. After only three years, I sold that condo at a 25% profit.  I moved back to Pennsylvania and started working for Penn State.  And as soon as I was able, I bought a townhouse.  I’ve bought and sold my home two more times since then, and now I know that I’m in the home where I plan to stay for a very long time.  I’ll probably even manage to pay off the mortgage in full.

What I learned over the years is that when the real estate market is strong enough, you don’t have to commit to a home forever unless you want to.  It is possible to sell a home after only a few years without taking a loss on it.  Real estate is more than just a place to live…it’s an appreciating investment.

My first husband still lives in the suburbs of Chicago with his wife and kids.  Ultimately, he did make that kind of commitment to Chicago. We just didn’t have the same goal at the time when it really mattered.  Everyone has their own financial goals. And before you too far into a relationship, it’s important to be clear with your partner what your goals are, and hopefully they will match up with each other’s.

Owning a home and being self-supporting were my goals.  My current goal is retirement at age 60.  Some people have a goal of saving a certain amount of money.  Some have a goal of being debt-free.  Others have a goal of starting their own business.  Your goal is the thing that is important to you.  And everyone’s goal will be a bit different. What is important is that you have a goal and you set your sights on working toward it.

What are your financial goals?

One Bite at a Time

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You’ve probably heard the old adage, “How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.”  It’s a great way to look at a giant goal and realize that you have to break it down into much smaller chunks.

Many of you followed my progress last semester as I went from Couch to 5K.  Once I finished that program I set a goal for myself to run at least one 5K race per month for the rest of the year.  And I’ve been doing that (with the exception of August due to scheduling challenges), with my most recent race being this past Sunday.  And Sunday’s race was a game changer for me.  It’s the first 5K race that I’ve run the whole way through.  No walking breaks.  Just slow and steady jogging from start to finish.  That’s been a goal for me all summer.  I feel like I just finished a chunk of my elephant.  And now I can move forward to the next goal of increasing my distance so I can move on to a 10K next year.  (And yes…my elephant is a 26.2 mile marathon.  Someday.)

Many financial goals seem monumental at first.  Repaying student loans.  Repaying a car loan.  Paying off a credit card debt.  Saving up enough money for a down payment on a house.  Saving for retirement.  These are all really big goals.  Elephant size.  So it makes sense to break them down into smaller chunks.  Set your sights on an intermediate goal, such as “I will pay off $1,000 of my credit card debt this year.”  It’s not the whole elephant.  But it’s a significant chunk.  And when you achieve that intermediate goal, you feel good about yourself and want to work harder toward the next intermediate goal.

One bite at a time.  Slow and steady.  It’s the only way to get there.

Achieving Goals: Eye on the Finish Line….Keep Moving Forward!

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Many of my regular readers have been following my progress as I moved from Couch to 5K and toward my first real 5K race.  That race (the PILF Race Judicata) happened yesterday.  And I finished.  I’ve been working and working and working toward the goal of running this race, and I have actually achieved my goal.  Was it perfect?  Certainly not.  Several times I slowed from a jog to a walk to regain some stamina.  But I never stopped.  And I jogged much more than I walked.  And I finished somewhere in the middle of the pack.  I have every reason to feel proud of what I have accomplished.  And I was so excited by my success that I already signed up to do another race next weekend.

Putting in hard work to achieve a goal is something that you will do over and over throughout life.  Many of these goals will be financial.  Save up a down payment for a house.  Pay off your car loan.  Pay off your credit card debt.  Pay off your student loans.  Save enough money for retirement.  These are all fairly long term goals.  They will require you to slowly and consistently work toward them.  It’s not always easy.  Sometimes you want to run toward the finish line, but the reality is that you have to walk for a little while.  But the important thing is that you keep moving forward.  You keep putting at least something in savings.  You keep making at least the minimum payments. You keep your eye on the finish line.  And eventually you achieve the goal.

When I started my first 5K race yesterday, I kept telling myself that I was already doing better than most people because I was there.  I had put in the work and set the goal, and I was ready to try.  And I kept moving forward.

Set your financial goal.  Put in the work.  And keep moving forward at whatever pace you can.  You don’t need to finish first.  You do, however, need to show up and keep moving forward until you reach the goal.