Life Goals?

I was thinking about sitting down with my husband and writing up a list of goals we have. Like a his, her's, and ours list of short and long term goals. Has anyone ever done this? What kind of format/medium did you do it in? Was it at all helpful or just overwhelming?

I have a feeling we'll be doing this the same time we sit down and do our budget...

There are many articles like this one online: How to Write Short Term & Long-Term Goals http://www.ehow.com/how_5854870_writ...erm-goals.html

Life goals go pretty well with budgetary ones since most goals include needing to spend money or change jobs, take out loans for school, etc., all of which affect both people.

I think it is pretty smart. I have a general area of interest I use as a "goal" and sort of base my personal spending around that. We're retired and getting older and I know my husband keeps an eye on that and our finances, one of his goals is to keep having "enough" and prepare for late life contingencies, etc.

Well, my first goal is to get about 3 - 6 months ahead on my rent.

Then I'd like to sit down and get all those wills and directives filled out and notarized.

Then I'd like to find an old but dependable vehicle to get around in.

Of course, I'll settle for One Day, One Hour, One Minute ... Keeping It Simple and Easy Does'ing It.

On Saturday, we started working on our budget together, with an eye to our "joint" main goal -- Getting out of debt. I have to say, I got a little overwhelmed, especially seeing how Excel savy my husband is. I began to get worried about what would happen to me if anything ever did happen to him. His understanding of finances, making budgets, using Excel just blew me away. I realize I could have done it on my own if I absolutely had to, but it wouldn't have been as fancy and also would have taken me a lot longer... Days, if not weeks... We're going to start saving receipts and switching to cash instead of credit cards when February gets here.

We didn't get any further in our goals, though. I know we have some goals in mind, we just haven't taken the time to actually write them out... Like possibly having kids, owning a home, my husband would like to open his own business one day, and I'd like to finish my degree and further pursue professionalizing my crochet. So we have "loose" goals, but I guess I'd like to write them down and some of the things we need to do to make them happen (ie, for the house, how much money we need to save up for a down payment, that type of thing..).

But next weekend is a cleaning weekend...

MudCrab, thanks for the website. I haven't had a chance to check it out yet, but I definitely will!

Writing down goals is a must for people with ADD. Even something as simple as clean off 1 counter as a goal for the day needs to be written down. Procrastination is another huge stumbling block, by having a goal written down, there is a deadline. Big goals get chopped up into little goals and put into a schedule. Or little goals rolled up into big goals. Write them down and make them real goals.

one thing i'm learning is plan in pencil, things change or new opportunities come along.

good idea Jay