Goals, 2008

I've never been one for resolutions. Not at the new year, or really any other time. The cynic in me says that if the resolution-maker (whether it's me or someone else) really has both the desire and the ability to change, they would already have done it, and not waited until January 1.

But the idea is firmly entrenched in our culture that the transition from one calendar year to the next is an ideal time to take stock of where you've been, and where you're going. 2006 and 2007 were eventful years for me, with a lot of changes that I would not have foreseen. At the beginning of 2006, I was a graduate student in Kansas, working towards a PhD in ecology, living in an apartment, with no near-term plans of buying a house or starting a family. The end of 2007 found me in Pennsylvania, employed at UPenn in a cell biology research lab, while simultaneously making gradual progress on a Master's, discovering the joys and pains of homeownership, and expecting a baby girl in April.

So, they're not exactly resolutions along the classic lines of "lose weight, quit smoking, spend more time with family." But I do hope to achieve certain goals for 2008:

- complete my Master's degree at KU
- increase my salary
- add $8000 to our savings/investments
- write to one friend or family member each month

These are the primary goals, and I figure that with a new baby that will take up much of my time and energy, that is plenty. There are numerous lesser goals or related aims that I could also list (get more organized, get parts of the thesis published, get various things fixed or improved around the house, and so forth), but I'm sticking with goals that are quantifiable, so that at the end of the year I can easily say whether or not they were achieved.

Many people that know me might be surprised to see that two of my goals are financial in nature. In the past, I was never especially interested in money. As long as there was enough to meet our immediate needs, and preferably to put some into a savings account as well, I didn't care how much we earned, or how much we spent. But owning a house and preparing for parenthood have changed my perspective. As the one who does most of the banking and bill-paying, I had become vaguely aware that since we bought the house (almost exactly a year ago), our bank account wasn't shrinking, but it also wasn't growing. It occurred to me that this was a worrisome state of affairs if our expenses were slated to increase and/or our income would decrease. I decided that a more proactive approach was needed, and that I should learn something about managing money other than "don't spend more than you have." So, I used Quicken to help me collect data on our spending, and I started borrowing books about personal finance from the local library. Together we started talking about planning for the future (farther ahead than next month's bills), about budgets and saving and strategies for investing. So far, we're only two months into our efforts to be more financially responsible, but I think we've made a lot of progress. We've set up a budget that should be workable when the baby arrives, and that includes saving up some money. We're still pondering what to do with our savings once it has been set aside; I still feel like I have a lot to learn about investing. Overall, the plan is to keep some in savings, and to invest some. The allocation to each, and the types of investments we make, have yet to be decided.