The Next Money Milestones

The Next Money Milestones

My finances haven’t exactly been in order over the last few months. I have been sliding my card at every opportunity and saying YES to as many trips as possible. I have also been saving for other money goals, and I am getting very spread thin. Not to mention my expenses have risen.

 This has led me to a sizeable investment drop. Last year was the first year I was able to fill out my Roth IRA. For this year I added an Health Savings Account to the mix, and this has been taking most of my investment percentage. I made a decision to max this out at the beginning of the year, and I am going to continue to do this as long as I can. This was the first year I had access to an HSA, and I decided to take full advantage by maxing it out. I don’t know if my next job will have access to this fun account. My current investments are as follows. $6,500 in a brokerage. $3,900 in my HSA. $5,100 in my 401(k). My main account being my Roth IRA at $24,000. With almost $40,000 in total investments, I should be reaching the 30-year-old goal of having a year’s salary in retirement savings by 30. Right now, I make about $40,000 per year so I am getting very close to surpassing that at 27. Of course, my income should be going up in the next few years, I hope but as of right now I feel solid about where I stand.

That brokerage will be dropping soon though…

A diamond ring is a symbol of everlasting love. It is a gift, and a pledge to be with your partner through thick and thin. Coming from the old days, when you would propose to marry someone by giving their family a gift. Gives you some skin in the game to make the relationship work, no matter how difficult it is. It turns out diamond rings are expensive. After plenty of research, going through every single website, shopping in store, looking at clearance sections, I finally landed on a ring that costs a little over a month of my current wages. I had already saved this in my brokerage last year when I planned on purchasing this year. Thank goodness for saving a little bit along. This will take another goal off the list. The next savings goal is once again in my relationship life.

A wedding and a honeymoon is up next in the natural progression of relationships. This is a huge expense that I plan on having within the next year. With a budget of hopefully less than $10,000 I hope it can be done. My girlfriend and I will both put $5,000 of our own money to make it happen. We are planning the wedding to have minimum financial involvement from the two families. A small intimate ceremony is all we want. Not a large social family gathering. Close friends and family that can make it. $10,000 might evaporate QUICKLY but I think we can have a beautiful ceremony within that cost. A honeymoon would be next and this is another cost where we would like to enjoy a trip of a week or two. Hoping for Europe or a trip to Hawaii. What would be ideal also is a trip to California to visit the theme parks and then fly to Hawaii and enjoy a cruise there. This would basically be two big trips into one and would break up the flights as I am not the biggest flyer. With our access to free tickets to Universal Hollywood, and a free ticket to Disneyland, this would be a trip where we could get lucky into a cheaper experience. It could also be a trip to an Alaskan cruise as well with several different experiences which are something we are interested in. Alaska, California, Hawaii, or Europe. I am not sure if I am ready for a flight to Europe so the rest of these could be good options.

Another large expense that is coming is a vehicle. My car is showing its age more and at 90,000 miles it is almost time to get a new vehicle. I am terrified to get a new car payment but with the repairs getting more expensive, I might want to cut my losses and move into a reliable car and get a few years reset. This could decrease my insurance costs, decrease my gas costs, so I will have to math it out to see if it is worth moving to a new car. If I can decrease my car payment enough, it could come out as cheaper. And get out from under the falling knife that is my vehicle value.

None of these mention my tuition payments, my taxes I have to save for, my Roth IRA maximations, and even a vacation or two other than the big honeymoon. I would guess that the four cruise per year streak ends next year. Currently my expenses can’t go much lower. I had margin to work with in my budget last year but it has slowly been decreasing under my nose as more responsibilities have been added. Some necessities, some comforts. My current saving for retirement status is 16% of my gross income. Even with a small income like mine, it has been great seeing the mound build up.