I decided to get my goals for the coming year written down.
1. Pay off my student loan ($6800). I really have no idea how we are going to do this on one income, but maybe goal #2 will help.
2. Self-promote my real estate. I have decided to concentrate my efforts in my local rural area, as I have been spending too much time driving 45 minutes to Syracuse to sell real estate. I need to come up with some creative ideas to drum up some local business. I think drawing on the fact that I was born and raised in this town may help. Sub-goals:
a. Order new business cards - my old ones are outdated with info (old cell number) and my picture.
b. Once the cards are in, get a magnetic car sign made up. I know someone who does this and I know it will be a reasonable price.
c. Think up some creative marketing schemes. Right now I am considering offering a $50-100 gift card upon closing to a local department or home store, or possibly a donation to a charity (of buyer or seller's choice, in their name) upon closing, maybe 10% of my commission. These will both be a good chunk of my commission, but if it works to bring in new business, it will be worth it. And it won't cost me anything unless I actually close on a house.
d. Get new name riders for my "For Sale" signs - I need some with my new cell phone number on them.
e. possibly some direct marketing, i.e. postcards, free market analysis, etc.
All together, I want to earmark about $500 for this goal. If it is successful, it will pay off many times more than that.
3. Contribute the maximum to our Roth IRAs. We've been able to do this for the past two years (when we started), so it would be nice to keep it up. DH just started a Sharebuilder account too, and wants to put $100 a month in. I told him we could do it for now, but might need to stop if things get tight. So I guess another goal would be to put $1200 into Sharebuilder.
4. Maintain our $10k emergency fund. We have not had to touch much of this since DH went back to school, but I anticipate next year to be a little tougher.
I just asked DH what his goals were for next year - he said "To make more than I spend". Utterly simple, yet so true. Isn't that what we all want?
2006 Goals
December 29th, 2005 at 03:03 am
December 29th, 2005 at 02:30 pm 1135866600
April 20th, 2006 at 01:29 pm 1145536161
April 20th, 2006 at 02:57 pm 1145541469