My New Year's Money Resolutions

Here's a list of what I plan to accomplish in 2008 in the area of personal finances:

1. Increase net worth by at least 12.5% (this includes both saving and investing impacts.) We've been averaging over 16% for about 15 years now, but 12.5% has always been my goal. Maybe time to up this one, huh?

2. Check our credit reports for accuracy. Need to do at least once this year.

3. Check credit score. Something I've put off for too long.

4. Complete estate plan. Already started on this one -- have a lawyer and have selected guardians for our kids.

5. Complete 2007 tax return. An annual resolution, unfortunately.

6. Update my wife on our finances. I do an annual PowerPoint report each summer for her.

7. Give a good percentage of gross salary as offerings (in addition to tithing). I have an actual amount listed, but I'm leaving it off here. ;-)

8. Continue my major investments rebalancing. I will keep getting rid of old funds with high capital gains by donating them to charities while taking cash from income and replacing the amounts given with investment in index funds.

9. Look for a new home. Our search continues in earnest this year, so we may be moving in 2008 if we find the right place at the right price.

10. Earn additional income. Will try again to earn an extra $10k this year.

Comments

[Tim]

I'm very interested in how you go about accomplishing number 6. Not that I expect it be difficult, but I'd love to see what kind of PP presentation you put together for your wife. I will be getting married in a few months, and my fiance and I have already discussed that I will be handling the majority of the daily finance activities, but always making sure to keep her in the loop on the grand picture.

[FMF]

Tim --

I include the following slides (I'm forgetting some, but these are the major parts of it):

1. Net worth (and growth over past five years)
2. Spending by category over past year.
3. Specific investment accounts, what we have in each
4. Progress on major financial goals (list)
5. Issues we need to discuss/address in next year

[John]

It wouldn't be a new year without a new set of resolutions. Checking your credit reports and completing your estate plan are particularly good ones that I need myself.

[Kevin]

My wife and I just had our end-of-year talk about our finances and reviewed our 2007 results. We discussed:
1. our net worth growth since 12/31/04 (when I really starting tracking it religiously)
2. how our investments did this year
3. where we need to work on cutting spending in 2008
4. our savings goal for 2008 so we can move to a new home in 2009
5. other goals - paying off her car and student loan, so we will be debt-free except for our mortgage

Nothing really formal, I just printed out our net worth as of 12/31/07 and compared it to our previous' years printouts. Then we looked over our "income statement" for 2007 and talked about a few things. Overall we are pretty happy with the direction we are headed, but realize there is always room for improvement.

Is it possible to get our credit scores for free, if so where?