I am a New Year’s resolutions guy.
For the past 20+ years or so I have set goals at the beginning of each year, then spent the next 365 days working towards them.
I adjust along the way as needed. Some get added and some eliminated, but I’d say a good 80% of those initial goals get accomplished in some form over the next year.
This system has been very kind to me. Setting goals and monitoring them to completion has been one of the keys to many of my life’s successes.
And there’s no better area where this process has worked than in my finances.
Money Goals
I’ve shared my money goals on this site before — both in 2016 and 2017.
I didn’t in 2018 because 1) most of my major (and exciting goals) have been achieved and 2) as a result listing the ones I did have made for a boring post.
Instead, last year I shared Money Resolutions Everyone Should Consider to cover general resolutions that have the biggest impact and thus should be at least considered each year.
You may want to read that post as it’s still relevant this year (and every year really).
With all that history I couldn’t let a new year pass without encouraging everyone to think about your money goals for 2019 and develop plans to achieve them.
And to help in that process I have a simple option for how to make that happen (plus a free resource).
Old-School Resolutions
Before we get to those, I do have to mention that last month there was some talk about resolutions in the Rockstar Finance forums. Several bloggers left their top five resolutions for 2019.
Here are mine (with a few comments):
- Update estate plan/will — We have started the ball rolling here and will likely get it over the finish line in 2019! I’m so excited! It’s been on my to-do list for several years.
- Launch both kids on their own (#EmptyNest) — My daughter has graduated college and will move out next month (I’ll be giving an update on how her college savings turned out). My son now has two jobs that we’re trying to turn into one that pays enough for him to move out. I’m his chief partner in this.
- Take family on Caribbean vacation — Back to Grand Cayman we go!!!
- Plan large-scale charity effort with other money bloggers — This is in the works. As you know, I’m a big believer in helping others. There’s been a lot of chatter in the money blogging world about the fact that we should be givers too (not just savers for ourselves). Well, I’m going to work with some other great bloggers to put that chatter into action. Stay tuned.
- Decide how to allocate large cash reserve I’ve built up — I’m thinking of putting it into the stock market at this point, but also wouldn’t be opposed to buying more real estate if the housing market collapses. This time I’ll be more prepared than in 2008-2010 and things should go even better.
So those are my old-school resolutions (at least the top five) for those of you who like to see what I’m doing each year.
And some of you might want to create similar resolutions. But for others, this process seems too complicated. For you I have a new alternative…
ESI Money Resolutions
If you’ve been reading this site for more than 10 seconds you know that we focus on earning, saving, and investing (ESI) — the three steps that lead anyone to wealth.
So why not concentrate New Year’s resolutions around E-S-I? If those are the vital three steps, shouldn’t each of them be part of a resolutions plan every year?
To get you started, here are some questions you may want to consider for each of these:
Earn
- What are you going to do in 2019 to earn more?
- Will you make plans to grow your salary at work?
- Will you start a side hustle?
- Will a spouse go back to work?
- Or will it be something else?
Save
- What will you be doing to save more in 2019?
- Will you develop a budget and then review it monthly to look for savings?
- Will you forego a large expense to save?
- Will you cut a series of small expenses?
Invest
- What will you do in 2019 to increase your investing efforts?
- Will you reevaluate your portfolio?
- Will you increase your 401k contribution?
- Will you consider new investments like real estate?
There are more, of course, but these will get you started thinking about what you want to do in each area in 2019.
Just Pick Three
Now to put the “simple” in this process for those who do not want a complicated or extensive list of potential resolutions (which is most people, BTW.)
Here’s my simple resolution alternative for those who want a big bang with minimal time commitment:
Simply list one annual goal for each of E-S-I that you want to accomplish in 2019.
Surely everyone can make the time to focus on three goals, right?
Let me show you what this might look like. If I was doing the simpler ESI resolution method, here’s what I might come up with:
- In 2019, I want to grow my income by $25,000 by growing my website income. (Earn)
- In 2019, I want to save $1,000 by eating out less. It’s healthier to eat at home anyway. (Save)
- In 2019, I want to complete the liquidation of my P2P lending assets. (Invest)
There, see how easy that was?
It’s really something anyone can do.
So if you’ve rejected resolutions to this point because they are too tough, what’s your excuse now? 😉
30 Days to Great Finances
In addition to this option for making resolutions easier to set and achieve, I have a special offer (free, by the way) for those who want a guide to either get your finances in order or simply a series of reminders for any tuning-up you’d like to do.
I created a 30-day email series called “30 Days to Great Finances” that we will be giving to people when they register for the Rockstar Finance daily email.
But I also wanted to give current ESI Money readers a chance at it (without needing to sign up for the Rockstar Finance email), so for a limited time, it’s available here. Sign up if you are interested.
Hopefully either (or both) of those options will provide enough guidance to get you started on achieving great financial goals in 2019.
So, does anyone want to share their goals for 2019, one each for earning, saving, and investing? I’d love to hear them!
And if you have goals in a different format or style, feel free to post those as well. I’d love to see what’s in store for each of you this year.
The Physician Philosopher says
Biggest personal goals:
-Finish paying off my $200,000 in student loans in 19 months by February 1st of 2019. On the home stretch with this one!!!
-I want to start tithing 10% from our pre-tax paycheck instead of our take home pay.
Earn:
– I want to earn $25,000 from my blog, and make $20,000 in profit.
– From the above earnings, I want to give $5,000 to charity.
Save:
– I want to start saving >30% of our gross income annually.
– I want to track our spending better in 2019. (We got off course after we got a few credit cards for the travel points and didn’t set these up with Mint).
Invest
– I want to max out my 403 B, wife’s governmental 457 and 401K, HSA, and backdoor Roth IRA this year.
– We want to open a taxable account for whatever additional money is needed to get to our > 30% savings goal.
Those are the highlights! Now I need to go write a post sharing these on my site 🙂
TPP
ESI says
Wow! Those are some great ones! 2019 will be awesome for you!!!!
Xrayvsn says
For me I would really like to start working on creating a trust/estate plan. I do have a will in place but know the importance of a trust so that my estate would not have to go through probate and tie up assets and create unnecessary cost for my heirs.
2019 will be the first full year of blogging for me and I hope to build and grow that side hustle into a more profitable adventure, increase viewership and hopefully add more sponsors. I already have planned to attend FinCon 19 so I am excited about doing that for the first time.
ESI says
Looking forward to seeing your blog progress and meeting you at FinCon!
Nathan @ Life Before Budget says
Great list of goals! I am a big proponent of setting up goals, too. A couple of my goals are to spend 10% less money and avoid using plastic, disposable water bottles. Hopefully, each of these goals will be both easy to complete and very beneficial.
PerpetualNovice says
I think 2019 is a bit of an inflection point for my family. We’ve been following a debt snowball plan for a few years and will be debt free (other than our mortgage) next month. This means that for the first time since I’ve started working (I’m early 40’s now) we’ll be actively contributing to our retirement. We’re currently allocating over 20% of our monthly income to pay off the last of the student loans. Come March, this will be transitioned to my workplace retirement account to max that out. It’s an exciting time – but also a little scary. A long way to go towards financial independence – but also exhilarating to be debt free have less than 10 years on the mortgage.
For my goals:
E – I’ll be building some workplace skills this year through a professional development program. Hoping to parlay that into a new position in the next few years. I’ll keep my small side hustles as well – but no real drive to grow those this year.
S – We use YNAB religiously so we’ll keep up with that. I’m also looking to cut our spending at the margins a little bit. Going to downgrade my gym membership and continue food shopping at Aldi. With three kids – we have cut a lot, but also know that once they move out – we’ll have some major opportunities to cut (car insurance, cell phones, school-related expenses)
I – As noted above – begin to max out my workplace retirement account, fund some home projects that have been delayed while paying off debt, and fill a sinking fund to replace 2 aging vehicles (I commute nearly 60 miles a day so this is a high priority).
GenX FIRE says
This is really great advice, and I am going to sit down with my wife and do this exercise with her. Ideas like this have been mulling around the ol’ noggin and here is what I know is on our plate.
E – I am working on two areas. For one, I am working on my coding skills as that can only help me in the market and in my role. The other is working on side projects. A cousin of mine is a great maker that knows how to build products. He’s willing to spend time helping me make anything I can come up with; he’s already an accomplished maker.
S – We increased our savings rate in the fall when we went through our raise cycle at work, so that already was a deep dive. It seems though that we might be able to do more, and tune up a few %.
I – We tuned up our auto investing, having maxed out annual 401k a few years back. Now we are trying to add non-retirement investments up much more. That has proven harder, but I think we can do more. Maybe we will add some of that to our extra mortgage principle payment each month, or maybe some traditional investments. That one is still up in the air.
Easy Peasy FIRE says
The Earn/Save/Invest breakdown was a useful way to structure things. Thanks for sharing!
beth says
I hope you concentrate your blog efforts on more posts like this. I enjoy your writing and click on to your blog almost daily but I don’t read the scale or millionaire interviews. Articles like this one are informative and useful for me.
Money Beagle says
I love it. I’m working on finalizing my goals. I will publish them on my blog next week if all goes well. This year I’m going to put quantification for each one of my goals. Too many goals are abstract, so I’m going to tie each one to specific and measurable values.
Best of luck.
Christine Marie says
I’ve been following this blog for a while but this is my first time as a blogger!
This year marks an inflection point for me as well. It’s the first time in my career that I feel that I’m at risk of losing my job (22 years at same company). I’m 51, and my husband is retired at 58. We’re fortunate from the perspective that I’ve had a fairly high income for many years (300k or so). What we haven’t had is a budget.
So,
E: My husband and I have both agreed that it may make sense for him to get a part time job to add to our earnings, moving directly to investments. I would love to have a side gig to add to my earnings, but I haven’t figured out an option yet.
S: If I lose my job, this might be tricky. Instead of talking about savings, I’ll talk about our January plan. I’ve dubbed January as “how little can we live on” January. Our first step needs to be getting my spending under control. I haven’t really had to think about budgeting. What we don’t have is a big house or expensive cars. We have no debt. I spend on “stuff” without giving it much thought. We also have two boys that eat a lot of food!
I: We max out pre-tax investment and are just about set with kids college funds. Our goal is to get a better handle on spending to increase investments. As a side note, we have about $1.5Mm, not including house and cars (I read the discussion about net worth). What I suspect is true is if I lose my job; this isn’t enough to pay living expenses and health care. The $1.5 is post stock market losses.
As a side-note, something I’m proud of is we’ve had discussions with our kids about the importance of investing, and had our financial planner talk to them about a year ago.
Our 20 year old has about 15k invested. He started working as a soccer ref when he was about 12 and got a part time job at 16. He’s now in college, and makes enough to invest $400 monthly. He may need some of his savings to pay for year 5 of school
Our other son, at 18, is investing $100 a month.
So, 2019 – we have to increase our investments to make sure we’re prepared in the event my job goes away.
Phillip says
I’m considering the reverse on the Save and Invest avenues.
1) Be less concerned about earning more as the incremental income and resulting extra wealth will likely just go to my heirs. I need to enjoy more and obsess less about wealth.
2) Be less obsessed with saving. My wife reminds me we can’t take it with us and criticizes me for being too frugal. Example: She’s is growing tired of some of the lower end tourist class hotels I’m picking when we went on vacation over Christmas break. She has a point as I’m probably more frugal than we need to be … but saving is fun for me.
3) On the investment side, I’m still on course and resolve to at least max out all tax advantaged investment options and continue to invest the proceeds aggressively (e.g. equity index funds) since we can afford the risk.
The CFO says
Just 3 resolutions – love it! I always create a list of 10 “Magical” things I want to happen in any year. Usually I tend to achieve 7 to 8 of them. From investments to holidays to getting stuff done, but I like the E.S.I approach. Earn more, save more and invest better 🙂 Now to turn that in actionable, concrete items.