Financial Goals for 2007, 2008, and 2009 – Debt Reduction
I decided it was time to publicly set some firm interim debt reduction goals for our family. We still have the overall goal of eliminating our credit card, student loan, and car loan debt by December 2010, but I wanted to set some goals for December 2007, 2008, and 2009 on the blog to help monitor our progress a little more and keep us on track.
I’ve revised the number I think we can pay to debt each month. My past calculations were based on $975/month to debt, but I think we can manage $1025. It will be a little bit more of a stretch, but that is my new goal number. It actually would have us out of debt in October of 2010 but I am not going to revise that date yet.
I also am going to at the end of 2007, look at the actual numbers we paid to debt each month and see what on average from July to December that number is. At that point, I am going to print another calculation based on the snowball calculator and start tracking our actual debt totals vs the projected totals according to the snowball sheet from month to month. I think at this point, it would end up revised too often to be useful since we are still figuring out what a reasonable yet ambitious number to pay to debt actually is for us. By December we will have 6 months of data to look at so I think that will give us enough to work with to make good assumptions.
And of course I’ll be posting and discussing that data here. 
Without further ado, on to the goals!
Goals by end of 2007:
-transfer credit card balance to 0% interest offer (ASAP – hopefully done by Labor Day)
-credit card balance under $4000 (snowball calculator projects $3980 lol)
Goals by end of 2008:
-credit card paid off (target August 2008)
-spouse student loan under $10000 (calculator projects $10030)
Goals by end of 2009:
-car paid off (expected March 2009)
-spouse student loan paid off (calculator projects December)
-my student loan under $10000 (calculator projects $10120)
So, the goals are ambitious (I used $1025 as my monthly payment number and that is slightly more than we have hit it July or August) but I think reasonable and attainable. Barring anything unforseen… and of course there will be a few of those I am sure! But we can always readjust. As long as we keep focused on moving forward.
~J
August 21st, 2007 at 9:35 am
Enjoy reading your site. Good luck with your goals. Meanwhile, would you mind saying how much your student loans are?
August 21st, 2007 at 10:02 am
A little over $12,000 each at this point (my spouse and I), the exact totals are under the “Current Numbers” tab near the header.
Thanks!
August 21st, 2007 at 12:40 pm
Cool site… I am just going through all your archives and have really enjoyed the content. Good luck with the debt reduction. It seems blogging has been a very successful way of reducing debt because of the sense of community and accountability it creates, while maintaning some privacy. Good luck and look forward to more great content!
August 21st, 2007 at 1:21 pm
Great goals! I really think you’ve really thought through your goals too. You have a plan of attack. I love reading about your progress!
August 21st, 2007 at 2:22 pm
Thanks! Glad people are enjoying the site
And it is good it seems I have a plan – I know I do but at the same time, my brain is (sometimes?) a jumbled disorganized mess. Heh. Thanks for the encouragement!
August 29th, 2007 at 4:52 pm
#6K in 3 years ! you can do it. Depending how big your household income is. The main thing you wrote down your goals and are sticking to the details.
August 29th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Well we think we can. It seems like a whole lot but apparently we used to fritter a whole lot too lol.
September 9th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
Wow, you’ve done so well! Keep going!! The end is now very much in sight.