My Financial Goals for 2009 – What are Yours? | Income Trust | Personal Finance

My Financial Goals for 2009 – What are Yours?

Posted on January 8th, 2009 by MillionDollarMan

Time to do my financial goal declaration for 2009.

With my wife going back to work part time, the income from her side will be slightly less than what we are getting now from maternity benefits. Reason? The actual income should be about the same, but the fees are higher. Medical insurance, pension contributions, professional dues etc will eat into the paychecks. However, regardless of my wife’s salary, I plan to continue focusing on earning more income.

Another bold market return goal this year? With the possibility of an extended bear market, who knows what the markets will return. Perhaps it would be prudent to focus on savings goals instead. Rather than saying that I’m going to save a certain percentage of my income, lets clearly define what I’m going to do with the savings.

Open a TFSA with a discount brokerage and maximize the contribution – As of January 1, 2009 (or a bit later), some discount brokerages will offer a tax free trading account. We will open 2 accounts, one for each spouse, maximize the contribution ($10k total), and start the TFSA income fund strategy that I’ve written about before.
Maximize RRSP Contributions – Due to higher income in 2008, my contribution limit will be higher and I plan to maximize my contribution. This will do two things. One, it will put some cash into my RRSP account so that I can buy beaten up equities. Two, it will reduce my taxable income significantly in 2009.
Pay Down Mortgage Principal by $20,000 on Top of Regular Mortgage Payments – Seems like a stretch, but in addition to maximizing both the TFSA and RRSP, I plan on paying down the mortgage principal by an additional $20,000.
Charity Goals – As charitable giving is becoming more important to our family, we plan on giving at least $3,000 this year to registered charities. In addition to the financial contribution, we plan on donating at least 30 hours of our time to a local charity that we support.
Blog Goals – The quality of the Million Dollar Journey community never ceases to amaze me. I hope to continue the strong readership growth of this blog in reaching 7,000 subscribers by the end of the year.
Dividend Income Goals – One of my higher priority goals is to increase my passive or alternative income. My current Smith Manoeuvre portfolio is paying about $1,000/year in dividends which I plan to increase this year. Combining both my dividend portfolio along with our TFSA’s, I hope to reach $2,500/year in investment income by the end of 2009.

There you have it! My financial goals for 2009. I believe that writing down or declaring your goals is great motivation to keep pushing towards your desired results.

Care to share your financial goals for 2009? Feel free to use this thread as your personal finance goal diary. Big or small goals, it will help keep me motivated (and hopefully you) in knowing that readers are working towards acheiving their financial goals as well.

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