Last month I started tracking my progress against my financial goals for this year against a monthly scale. As I have set several goals in different areas of saving and am aiming to achieve these goals in order of priority, I find this a much easier way to measure my progress. How I am trying to do this is that I am noting down what my individual goals are and the value amounts of what I expect to achieve by the end of the year. Then I noted what my actual starting amounts were then minused these two amounts, which gave me the actual amounts I would require to reach my goals. I then divided these amounts by 12, which gave me the monthly amount required to reach the goals. I can then compare my actual amounts saved or paid off each month to the monthly amounts provided by the above calculation. This way I can see which goals I am on target to reach after 12 months and which ones I am still behind on.

I have also carried out this calculation on my goal net worth, which includes all the individual golas I set. This gives me a clear indication of how I am tracking overall for the month.

So for example, I may be behind on paying off my student loan by 2 months, but I may been ahead of paying off my CC by 2 months and therefore still be on track to reach my financial goals by the end of the year as my net worth may be right on target.

I hope my explaination is understandable. This system of goal tracking is very much a work in progess for me and I'm open to any feedback or suggestions you may have that might help me keep a better overview.

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Well after all the explaination lets have a look at my progress to date. I managed to pay off our CC this month (woohooo go us! - I'm still celebrating this one and will be for a long time) which means I have accomplished my total target for the next 12 months on that one. The only debt we still have is my student loan, but due to the very low interest rate (3.5%) on that loan we have decided not to pre-pay it just yet. Instead we are going to build up our savings, which has already started and hopefully should pick up some momentum in the next few months. We are currently not behind on any of our goals and are ahead on some, which puts our net worth at our 5 months expected goal. Woohoo!



This is the first year that we have ever set actual financial goals for ourselves and it is also the first year that we've had so much extra cash. Mainly due to both of us changing our jobs in the second half of last year, which increased our take home income by 1000 EUR each month. So there were alot of uncertainties when I set the goals for this year. I do not feel as though we will keep up this great progress for the whole year so I don't think I need to adjust my goals to be more agressive. If we can reach them I'll be happy. Then we'll see what the next step will be.