Goals for 2009
Besides budgets, I believe goals are the 2nd most important thing to have. They help you plan for the future and keep you on track to reaching your dreams.
In a prior post I mentioned the overall goal was to retire by the age of 35. But other than an overall goal, I try to make mini goals for the next 6 months to a year.
These are the goals I created in the beginning of CY 2009 and hope to accomplish by the end of 2009:
- Buy real estate property in 2009 or start a business. Look at two to three properties per week and brainstorm two to three business ideas per week. Property can be a single family house, condo, or townhouse.
- Save $50,000 in 2009. This includes stocks, mutual funds, 401k, cash, real estate, checking, savings.
- Get laser eye surgery in 2009
- Complete CPA certification in 2009
- Complete will for parents in 2009. After discussion with parents, replaced with adding name onto deeds.
- Open up a RenMiBi account (chinese currency) in 2009
So far, I have been able to complete four of the six goals (the ones that have been crossed out), which I am already pretty happy about. I won’t know whether I have been able to save $50,000 in 2009 until the end of this year. So the results of that goal is still undetermined.
However, in the six months since I first set out these goals, there have been changes to two of the goals. I believe it is a good idea to revisit your goals at a minimum of once a week to see how much progress you have accomplished and to figure out which tasks to set out for yourself for the following week in order to come closer to accomplishing your goals.
The two goals that have been modified:
- At first my parents and I were going to set up a will for them in 2009. However, after various discussions with them and other people, we have decided instead to just add my name to the two property deeds they have. Based on estate laws, that should help them escape probate on those two properties, their biggest assets. And since we have/are recording in joint tenancy then the property passes to the remaining names on the deed if anything happens. That makes the entire process easier.
- I previously wanted to create a RenMiBi account and convert my U.S. dollars into chinese currency because I believe the dollar will weaken within the next few years. However, after inquiring with various online and local banks (HSBC), I found that opening a RenMiBi account is prohibitively expensive and the benefits do not outweigh the costs. I don’t qualify for online banks such as Everbank due to their restrictions on minimum balance and net worth. They also don’t pay any interest on the RenMiBi account. HSBC requires a $200 fee to even open an account and also has a minimum balance requirements of at least $10,000. In addition to that, converting RenMiBi back to US dollars is a tedious process because, depending on which bank you use, you can be limited to withdrawing $200 a transaction. With all these drawbacks, I have decided to revise the goal of opening a RenMiBi account into another goal.
Revised/Shiny New Goal:
- Instead of opening a foreign currency account to diversify my risk of the weaken US dollar, I will once again build up my coffers in savings (previously I had depleted my coffers after buying House #3). I plan on continously saving money for the latter half of CY 2009 and entire CY 2010. I believe the housing market should be bottoming out end of 2010 to mid 2011 (after the Alt-A and Option ARM crisis hits). Thus, with all of the saved money I will once again put 20% down on another real estate property. The best hedges against inflation/a falling dollar are (1) gold, (2) commodities, (3) foreign currencies, and (4) real estate. So I’m moving from one category of hedges to another.
So here are the Remaining Goals (revised):
- Save $50,000 in 2009. This includes stocks, mutual funds, 401k, cash, real estate, checking, savings.
- Save money from June 2009 – December 2010 and use it to put another 20% down on a real estate property before June 2011.
These goals that I set out for myself are somewhat ambitious. I have only been working for four years but I plan on buying two properties (both at least 20% down) by the sixth year I’m out of grad school.
Why do that? I truly believe there is no better time than these next few years to get into the real estate market. Record low interest rates, plummeting house prices, and skyrocketing inflation looming in the future – These all indicate that we can find some exceptional deals right now.
Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.
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It is nice to see that you have met almost all your goals. It looks like the biggest ones are out of the way. It seems like you have nice parents, who are willing to discuss wills, and property transfers. These are things that are not very easy for people to deal with.
I will revisit my goals. I think I had 101 goals/dreams in 1001 days about 2 years ago. Goals for this year included passing the CPA exams, saving a lot, and a few other mini-goals. I think it is good to have 4-6 major goals for the year like you did. Thanks for sharing.
If I may ask, how did you get into real estate? How were you “trained” for it? Thanks in advance for your response.
Wow 101 goals is impressive, good luck on accomplishing them. My parents have touched upon selling and buying real estate and that is why I am interested in using investment properties as a viable cash flow. A good way to get into real estate would be mentoring with another investor or agent.
101 sounds like a lot, but some of my goals are small and accomplished very easily accomplished with some repetition. For example, one of my goals was to drink water for 30 days as the only beverage. Another was to not watch tv for 30 days. After 30 daily repetitions, those became habits that I struggled with for a long time time.
Thanks for the feedback regarding real estate. I am not at that point in my life yet… and I am not sure I would like to get into it. I was just curious to see how you were prepared/trained for it. Take care and good luck!