Although I have coming to this site religiously and hungrily gulping down all your posts, I have been avoiding posting as I have been ashamed.

In my original posts I was pretty certain that I would have managed to pay off my credit card by now, however due to life happening I was not able to do so and I did not want to mention it to all you people who are doing so well. It just puts me so much to shame. But as it is a new year and I am truely optimistic about this coming year I thought I'd start a fresh and write down the things I have been planning in my head for months.

My goals for 2008 are:

- Pay off my credit card once and for all (currently at 2109.14 EUR @ 17.5% --ouch!). I have a payment plan in place which should have this debt paid off by March'08, but I keep aiming for February. However. I know that this is a very optimistic goal and we are very unlikely to reach it.

- Add another 4800 EUR to our pensions and max out any additional contributions. In Holland pensions are set up differently to the states and we do have a much lower cap on how much we can contribute.

- Save at least 3000 EUR for long term savings.

- Add at least 2000 EUR to the current EF which is currently at 1000 EUR

- Keeping paying down my student loan with minimum payments as the rate is very lower (just above 3%). 8716 EUR currently and although this will keep me in debt for the next 14 years, I believe I will start paying it off quicker later, once I have managed to pay off my credit card and save up a bit for investing.

- Our net worth is currently at -5,650 EUR. My goals concerning this this year is to aim to increase it by at least 10,000 EUR.
My two step plan to do this is by decreasing our debt and increasing our savings. This co-incides with all the goals mentioned above and when calculated out would look like this:

Current Total Debt: 10,825 EUR
Minus
Credit card: 2109.14 EUR
Amount of paid off student loan excluding interest paid: 480 EUR
EOY Total Debt: 8235.86 EUR

Current Total Assets: 5,175 EUR
Minus
Pensions: 4800 EUR
Long term savings: 3000 EUR
EF: 2000 EUR
EOY Total Assets: 14,975 EUR

Assets - debt = net worth
Current: 5,175 EUR - 10,825 EUR = - 5,650 EUR
EOY: 14,975 EUR - 8235.86 EUR = 6,739.14 EUR

Diff. in net worth = 12,389.14 EUR

I believe with our current budget and annual income that this goal is attainable. We just both need to try and control our impulse spending. We managed to do this over Xmas. I think this last Xmas it the frugalist I've ever had, and we both enjoyed it tremendously. So we'll see how this goes. I still need to work out the fine details, but I do have some plans in mind to help reach this goal, which I'll detail in a later entry.

Well good luck to everyone in reaching your goals in 2008!