GOAL!!!

“Vision without action is a dream. Action without vision is simply passing the time. Action with Vision is making a positive difference.”

-Joel Barker, Independent Scholar & Futurist

Almost all Personal Finance articles I’ve read say that the first step in achieving financial freedom is establishing realistic financial goals and plans. I’m a dreamer so this is a cinch for me! Haha. Let me rephrase that. I’m a doer because dreamers let the dream be just a dream while doers create a plan and does something to achieve the goal. Before envisioning my fiscal goals, I have to assess my present personal finances. Currently, I already achieved the following:

1. Set up my Emergency Fund. Six months of expenses already covered.
2. Bought a SunLife Balanced Fund. It’s a 70% Equity Fund and 30% Bond Fund. Sorry for all Kiyosaki Fans. I know Robert is not a fan of mutual funds but I admit that I’m just an amateur investor right now and this is the investment that I first knew about and understood. Robert Kiyosaki did advise us to stick to what we know and I’m sticking to what I know.
3. Invested in a cooperative. The Company that I work for has a cooperative run by employees and as part of paying myself first, I let the cooperative automatically deduct 20% from my salary every payday. I don’t withdraw this money at all.

On the whole, the main goal is to have more passive income than active income (Read Wealth within Your reach By Francisco Colayco to better understand Passive and Active Income) and as time passes by I want to live off my Passive income only and not work anymore. Haha!

So here are the financial goals I want to achieve this year 2009:

1. Earn money off this blog. I already enrolled in Adsense but it is not yet activated. However, once it is activated, I would really advise all those who read this blog to click on the Ads! :)
2. Invest In Stocks. Calling all Stock investors! Any Tips for a beginner like me??
3. Put Money in a high Interest Savings CD Actually, my boyfriend and I thought of this goal and we are currently saving from our salaries so we can put money in a Time Deposit earning 6% interest in a Rural Bank. I know 6% isn’t much but it is a start.
4. Invest in Treasury Bills/Bonds/Notes. This goal is somehow difficult for me not just because I have to put out P100,000-P200,000 immediately as an initial investment but also because I don’t fully understand how this really works.

This is basically it and I think all my goals are pretty clear and realistic. I just hope that I enact on them and achieve most of it by the end of the year. There may be a lot of hurdles to go through as I try to attain these goals but we all know that financial freedom does not happen overnight, it takes work and the quest for it, is a lifetime process. :)