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Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Daft, Unattainable, Meaningless and Bogus Goals

My boyfriend randomly started up a personal finance conversation with me last night. He isn't that well informed (though he's good with money), so it was fun for me to share what I've learned from this personal finance blogosphere. Not that I mentioned my blog--it's private for now, though I wouldn't be horrified to share it with him.

One thing he came up with was a goal that we should try to have 150k saved up for a house in the next 3.5 years. Not that I do "SMART" goals (specific, measurable... acheiveable... see, I don't even know the acroynm), but I don't to dumb goals either. In fact, I invented a new acronym: Daft, Unattainable, Meaningless and Bogus! I asked if there was any math involved in coming up with that number, and he said no. He just took the date when he'd be done with grad school, pulled another number out of a hat, and said it would be a good goal for our house downpayment.

I did some quick math. Assuming I had to come up with 1/2 of that, I would have to save about $1800 a month. I could maybe do it, if I stopped saving for retirement! Besides, I'm not really all that keen on property ownership at this point in my life. I don't even know where I want to settle! I told him that we could discuss a goal like this if/when we are engaged, but for now, I'm sticking to my own goals. I'm willing to compromise, but not just on some whim of his!

Speaking of retirement, I would like to leave you with this depressing snapshot of my 401k. I'm sure glad I don't need this money for years!

4 comments:

E.C. said...

Yikes! $150,000 would be a 20% down payment on a $750,000 house. Surely even in the more expensive regions of the country he wouldn't expect your first place to cost three quarters of a million. (Then again, I may lack perspective on this; around here, $150k would buy a fairly nice house outright.) Did you ask him how, exactly, he proposes to save his half on a grad student stipend? Unless he's independently wealthy, I don't envision that working too well.

SJean said...

I don't think it was a real goal, definitely not well thought out. I believe he got the idea from HGTV, haha. We might want to go abroad and purchase there.

Anyway, he also has this idea that it would be great to pay cash for a house. Whatever. Like I said, I don't think it was a real goal. I hope not!

SavingDiva said...

I think you're smart to concentrate on your own financial goals.

Anonymous said...

yeah, since you're not engaged, I think it's kind of pointless to talk about saving money with him. He should just work on not getting more debt first and pay off any loans if he has any. $150,000 is definitely attainable in 3.5 years if both of you are working as engineerings, though. I was able to save close to that ($130k) before I got married and that took about 3.5 years.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Daft, Unattainable, Meaningless and Bogus Goals

My boyfriend randomly started up a personal finance conversation with me last night. He isn't that well informed (though he's good with money), so it was fun for me to share what I've learned from this personal finance blogosphere. Not that I mentioned my blog--it's private for now, though I wouldn't be horrified to share it with him.

One thing he came up with was a goal that we should try to have 150k saved up for a house in the next 3.5 years. Not that I do "SMART" goals (specific, measurable... acheiveable... see, I don't even know the acroynm), but I don't to dumb goals either. In fact, I invented a new acronym: Daft, Unattainable, Meaningless and Bogus! I asked if there was any math involved in coming up with that number, and he said no. He just took the date when he'd be done with grad school, pulled another number out of a hat, and said it would be a good goal for our house downpayment.

I did some quick math. Assuming I had to come up with 1/2 of that, I would have to save about $1800 a month. I could maybe do it, if I stopped saving for retirement! Besides, I'm not really all that keen on property ownership at this point in my life. I don't even know where I want to settle! I told him that we could discuss a goal like this if/when we are engaged, but for now, I'm sticking to my own goals. I'm willing to compromise, but not just on some whim of his!

Speaking of retirement, I would like to leave you with this depressing snapshot of my 401k. I'm sure glad I don't need this money for years!

4 comments:

E.C. said...

Yikes! $150,000 would be a 20% down payment on a $750,000 house. Surely even in the more expensive regions of the country he wouldn't expect your first place to cost three quarters of a million. (Then again, I may lack perspective on this; around here, $150k would buy a fairly nice house outright.) Did you ask him how, exactly, he proposes to save his half on a grad student stipend? Unless he's independently wealthy, I don't envision that working too well.

SJean said...

I don't think it was a real goal, definitely not well thought out. I believe he got the idea from HGTV, haha. We might want to go abroad and purchase there.

Anyway, he also has this idea that it would be great to pay cash for a house. Whatever. Like I said, I don't think it was a real goal. I hope not!

SavingDiva said...

I think you're smart to concentrate on your own financial goals.

Anonymous said...

yeah, since you're not engaged, I think it's kind of pointless to talk about saving money with him. He should just work on not getting more debt first and pay off any loans if he has any. $150,000 is definitely attainable in 3.5 years if both of you are working as engineerings, though. I was able to save close to that ($130k) before I got married and that took about 3.5 years.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Daft, Unattainable, Meaningless and Bogus Goals

My boyfriend randomly started up a personal finance conversation with me last night. He isn't that well informed (though he's good with money), so it was fun for me to share what I've learned from this personal finance blogosphere. Not that I mentioned my blog--it's private for now, though I wouldn't be horrified to share it with him.

One thing he came up with was a goal that we should try to have 150k saved up for a house in the next 3.5 years. Not that I do "SMART" goals (specific, measurable... acheiveable... see, I don't even know the acroynm), but I don't to dumb goals either. In fact, I invented a new acronym: Daft, Unattainable, Meaningless and Bogus! I asked if there was any math involved in coming up with that number, and he said no. He just took the date when he'd be done with grad school, pulled another number out of a hat, and said it would be a good goal for our house downpayment.

I did some quick math. Assuming I had to come up with 1/2 of that, I would have to save about $1800 a month. I could maybe do it, if I stopped saving for retirement! Besides, I'm not really all that keen on property ownership at this point in my life. I don't even know where I want to settle! I told him that we could discuss a goal like this if/when we are engaged, but for now, I'm sticking to my own goals. I'm willing to compromise, but not just on some whim of his!

Speaking of retirement, I would like to leave you with this depressing snapshot of my 401k. I'm sure glad I don't need this money for years!

4 comments:

E.C. said...

Yikes! $150,000 would be a 20% down payment on a $750,000 house. Surely even in the more expensive regions of the country he wouldn't expect your first place to cost three quarters of a million. (Then again, I may lack perspective on this; around here, $150k would buy a fairly nice house outright.) Did you ask him how, exactly, he proposes to save his half on a grad student stipend? Unless he's independently wealthy, I don't envision that working too well.

SJean said...

I don't think it was a real goal, definitely not well thought out. I believe he got the idea from HGTV, haha. We might want to go abroad and purchase there.

Anyway, he also has this idea that it would be great to pay cash for a house. Whatever. Like I said, I don't think it was a real goal. I hope not!

SavingDiva said...

I think you're smart to concentrate on your own financial goals.

Anonymous said...

yeah, since you're not engaged, I think it's kind of pointless to talk about saving money with him. He should just work on not getting more debt first and pay off any loans if he has any. $150,000 is definitely attainable in 3.5 years if both of you are working as engineerings, though. I was able to save close to that ($130k) before I got married and that took about 3.5 years.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Daft, Unattainable, Meaningless and Bogus Goals

My boyfriend randomly started up a personal finance conversation with me last night. He isn't that well informed (though he's good with money), so it was fun for me to share what I've learned from this personal finance blogosphere. Not that I mentioned my blog--it's private for now, though I wouldn't be horrified to share it with him.

One thing he came up with was a goal that we should try to have 150k saved up for a house in the next 3.5 years. Not that I do "SMART" goals (specific, measurable... acheiveable... see, I don't even know the acroynm), but I don't to dumb goals either. In fact, I invented a new acronym: Daft, Unattainable, Meaningless and Bogus! I asked if there was any math involved in coming up with that number, and he said no. He just took the date when he'd be done with grad school, pulled another number out of a hat, and said it would be a good goal for our house downpayment.

I did some quick math. Assuming I had to come up with 1/2 of that, I would have to save about $1800 a month. I could maybe do it, if I stopped saving for retirement! Besides, I'm not really all that keen on property ownership at this point in my life. I don't even know where I want to settle! I told him that we could discuss a goal like this if/when we are engaged, but for now, I'm sticking to my own goals. I'm willing to compromise, but not just on some whim of his!

Speaking of retirement, I would like to leave you with this depressing snapshot of my 401k. I'm sure glad I don't need this money for years!

4 comments:

E.C. said...

Yikes! $150,000 would be a 20% down payment on a $750,000 house. Surely even in the more expensive regions of the country he wouldn't expect your first place to cost three quarters of a million. (Then again, I may lack perspective on this; around here, $150k would buy a fairly nice house outright.) Did you ask him how, exactly, he proposes to save his half on a grad student stipend? Unless he's independently wealthy, I don't envision that working too well.


SJean said...

I don't think it was a real goal, definitely not well thought out. I believe he got the idea from HGTV, haha. We might want to go abroad and purchase there.

Anyway, he also has this idea that it would be great to pay cash for a house. Whatever. Like I said, I don't think it was a real goal. I hope not!


SavingDiva said...

I think you're smart to concentrate on your own financial goals.


Anonymous said...

yeah, since you're not engaged, I think it's kind of pointless to talk about saving money with him. He should just work on not getting more debt first and pay off any loans if he has any. $150,000 is definitely attainable in 3.5 years if both of you are working as engineerings, though. I was able to save close to that ($130k) before I got married and that took about 3.5 years.