2012 Goals Part 2 - Financial Goals

Last week, I shared with you my volunteer goals for 2012 - what I want to achieve, and how I plan to achieve it. This week, in part 2 of my goal setting series, I'm sharing our financial goals for 2012.

In case you missed it last time, here are the links to the Master Goal List Printable, and the Goal Worksheet Printable, that breaks each goal into smaller tasks.

The Hubster and I sat down during the New Years weekend, and talked about finances. We talked about what we thought was working, and what we thought we needed to tweak. Last year, we didn't set concrete financial goals. Instead, we worked on vision boards, incorporating our financial ideals for the future. The boards are inspiring, and they help to remind us every day of where we want to go in life. But the goals themselves aren't quantifiable. This year, we're keeping the vision boards up, but we want to set specific, attainable goals to work towards in 2012.

Here are our 4 Main Financial Goals:

1. To revisit the budget monthly for tune ups and check ins, and stick to it.
2. To start and fund a veterinary savings account. (We decided on a specific amount to contribute to it monthly. In case you're wondering why - our dogs are big and old, one with a broken hip and severe hip dysplasia, and one with various other chronic conditions. The older they get, the bigger the bills get!)
3. To change from a 'save what's left' style of budget to a 'pay yourself first' zero based budget, effectively re-prioritizing savings. (We set a specific savings goal for each month, and budgeted around what was left.)
4. To try out a couple of alternative systems to the cash envelope system, and pick one we feel is the best one for us. We're starting with the Envelopes from iTunes app. I've read good things, but I plan to share my thoughts with you once I've given it a chance.

Some of these are pretty cut and dry, without a lot of tasks to work through. But it's still important to identify the necessary tasks to achieve the overall goal. I'll break down goal #2, the way it's broken down on my goal printable.

Tasks to Start and Fund a Veterinary Savings Account:

1. Identify how much food, prescriptions, and supplements cost per month, total. (To figure out how much from needs to be spent monthly first, in addition to savings.
2. Identify how much potential hip surgery would cost, including pre-surgery blood work and post-surgery physical therapy, and break down to a monthly savings goal towards that end.
3. Set up the actual savings account.
4. Set up monthly automatic transfer from checking to savings.
5. Revisit current veterinary needs and costs each month during the budget tune up mentioned above, and adjust as necessary.

So there we go, financial goals for 2012, and a break down of easy achievable steps for one of the goals. Managing our money well is important to me for all the obvious reasons, but also because I like to use our money to support what we believe - American made, cruelty free, pro small/local business. By managing money well (or trying to), we are able to 'vote with our dollars' more freely, where we think it matters.

Our goals aren't all serious though. We also came up with some 'doggy parent' goals for 2012. It includes lots of belly rubs and long walks. ;)

I've also set up health and happiness goals for 2012, which I wrote about for my monthly blog on MyMilitaryLife.com. 

Do you have financial goals for 2012? Are you sticking with what works, or making changes?