Comments on: How to Create a Five-Year Financial Plan

By: Dub

Dub — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 19:54:54 +0000

Great post. I’m 23 and my five year goals are:

- stay out of debt
- build & maintain $20,000 emergency fund ($6000 to go)
- max out Roth IRA each year (need work on this one)
- save $20,000 for down payment on a home

By: Raj

Raj — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:47:20 +0000

A good emergency fund should cover 6 months worth of expenses (especially in these times 6 months is a good time frame)…A good conservative figure for me is 4,000 expense per month which calculates to 24,000.

By: DoYouDaveRamsey

DoYouDaveRamsey — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:29:27 +0000

Great information for folks to read and implement. I try to break my goals into categories ranging from something tangible I can do today ranging up to 5 year goals… in between I have annual goals which are ’scheduled’ monthly throughout the year. It helps me perform each day in a manner parallel with my longer term vision.

I’ve shared a good bit on this and I love seeing someone else share a similar vision and perspective.

Thanks!
Dave

By: Sara

Sara — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:02:04 +0000

Why SUCH a big emergency fund? ($25k?)

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:38:53 +0000

I have to say, I haven’t thought about this much, but it is definitely a good idea. I haven’t thought about much for the next five years, finance or life goals. Thanks for the idea. I need to make some concrete plans. But that being said, I think I am going to focus on fixing up my condo and paying down my mortgage to save in the long run since I only envision renting it out if I move. I already have a yearly goal of maxing out my allowable ROTH IRA contributions which I have done for the past 3 years. I also definitely want to invest more, but also focusing on budgeting for lifestyle goals like nice vacations and eventually getting married.

By: M.Wanzer

M.Wanzer — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:37:46 +0000

This was a really good post. I graduated undergrad in 06 and I definitely had only one goal which was pay off my student loans, granted I did not really adhere to the steps needed to maintain that goal, and as a result I have clearly fallen off with reaching it. I have been trying to get on track. Being that I am 25 my goal for the next 3 years is to completely be debt free, which should not be too difficult since my biggest debt is my student loan debt. I have an auto loan that is at about 10K at 6%, even though the student loan I have with the highest intrest rate is less than the car loan, I have been focusing more on the student loans. My rationale being that if stuff gets too bad I can always try to sell the car and knock the autoloan down by at least half, can’t get rid of the student loans w/o paying them.

I think people under 30 get so bogged down in trying to do so many things, that we don’t really focus on incremental steps like you are talking about in this article, of course we all have grand dreams of working for ourselves or being rich but you are right, we definitely need to take a step back and ask ourselves, how are we going to get there.

By: Nicole

Nicole — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:39:27 +0000

Five years seems so far! I was asked for two years worth of cost projections for my new business and I practically peed my pants.

But you are right, a plan is definitely needed.

So psyched you found me on Facebook. You are so in my feedreader now!