The Plan.

As the old saying proverbs go, 'He who fails to plan, plans to fail.'

You'll need to aim at your target, otherwise - you'd be wasting your rounds on thin air. Finance wise - without a goal, you'll never reach financial peace. It doesn't need to be REALLY detailed - however, the more precise your planning is - the more likely you'd be able to follow the plan. Everyone strives to have financial peace - but how do you get to Point A to point B? PLAN.

I've mentioned where I want to be, where I would like to be. However - I'd like to go into more detail.

The Ultimate Goal : DEBT FREE.
Of course I have other goals (saving for retirement and our children's college) but DEBT Free is priority numero uno. I'm sick of giving people all my hard earned money when it can be MINE.MINE.MINE. I/We dug ourselves into this mess, so we just gotta pay (literally)

The Steps :  These steps are derived from Dave Ramsey's Plan & Part of the YNAB (You Need a Budget) system. A Hybrid Plan per se.

1. Create a budget. Pinky swear to it. - This is important. I'll ellaborate on what a budget means to us within the next few posts, but it's really important that the Hubbs and I review the budget together and commit to what's on paper. Pinky swear with a cherry on top. (We're cheesy like that... sometimes)  Immediately. 
2. Pay off all past due amounts. We need to work on this. Bad. Really Bad. Get them monkey's off our back so we can finally be on track. Money Required ~$2000.00 (WHOA) Deadline : 1-2 Months. (Oct 2010) 
3. Build a $2000 Baby Emergency Fund. Putting this emergency fund into our ING Savings makes it liquid enough for us to use it in case of EMERGENCIES.  Deadline: 2-3 Months (Nov 2010) 
4. Get Crackin. 
1. Slowly build a Buffer - 1 Month's worth of expenses. I'm not a fan of how I budget right now - I have 3 accounts/paychecks that I budget for twice a week. Crazy, I know. I probably make it more complicated that what it really should be - but I'm complicated like that. As soon as we're in bufferLAND. . budgeting would be easy. We'd be living on last month's pay today. . breaking the habit of living paycheck to paycheck. Deadline : ~1Year
2. Start snowBALLIN. I'll have a list of our debt on the right hand side (as soon as I have time to sit down and create html codes. I want it to look pretty. Any extra money would all go to crackin down debt. According to my Snowball App, Payoff date would be July 2014. That's a little less than 4 years from now. I want to get this done before the world ends - 2012. LoL. I hope the world won't end!! Shoot... By that time, I would have just paid up all our debt and we would have anytime to celebrate!! We won't have time to build a world end proof basement!! Goal 3 Years (2013) That's pretty modest considering the fact that we have over $79,000 worth of consumer/student debt. 
5. Say wasup to Dave Ramsey. We owe him. 
6. Save up 4-6 Months worth of Expenses. This would be the buffer's buffer. My empolyment is pretty stable (knock on wood) and I haven't had to worry about the integrity of my job during these hard Recession times. The Hubbs is a different case. He works 2 jobs. He's bound to give up soon. He goes to work everyday with his job on the line. One wrong move - one wrong moody boss day - and that's it. 13 years of time wasted. If anything happens - I don't want to go back into debt. We're working this hard and I'd hate to create www.brokeinthebay(AGAIN).com 
7. Get out of this place. I love/hate our home. Love - It's our first home and it's ours. Mortgage and all. HATE our neighbors. HATE our HOA. HATE the long commutes. HATE the sunny weather. I'd rather move to San Francisco/San Mateo area where it's nice and foggy all year round. No crazy 90 degree weather. I won't miss the pool we have here either. I can buy a jaccuzzi and a heating lamp, Thank you. Coz I'll be debt free. 

That's our 7 Step Program for the first 5 years or so. I'd love to pay off our home, but I'm okay with paying just the mortgage & utilities. Keep the eye on the ball. Keep the eye on the ball.