$9.703.87!

Didn't swing anything the last few days.

Good Bye 2007!

Certainly more than I ever imagined.

(& officially, as of stock close yesterday, net worth up $29,798!)

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For 2008, I haven't given much further thought. I guess whatever I add to retirement will do.

It's tempting just to include all savings. Or mortgage prepayments. But I want to encourage retirement savings over all else. So that is my goal. I will live, eat, breathe retirement.

So retirement to the challenge, it is. The thing is I will have a set amount in the budget once we get our raise, but every extra dime we come across SHOULD really go to retirement this year. I think we mostly have everything else covered.

So ideally, my challenge should read much the same. Gifts, focus money, windfalls, extra work, sales, credit card rewards, etc. should go to retirement. Yeah, we'll see!

I am putting interest to the car fund/efund. So that won't go into retirement. Which was a big chunk of the '07 challenge. Only big difference. (& that's the easiest money!).

I am planning to put my entire raise just to the monthly budget (I don't expect much. If it is more I will reconsider). Hoping to add another couple hundred monthly to the slush so that I can put ALL the extras to retirement.

I think I will have my IRA covered regardless. But the other $5k (dh's IRA), lord knows where it will come from. Hoping the challenge will help!!!!!!!

It's not a priority in the budget otherwise, but I think if we continue like last year, we may just be able to scrounge it up. (maxing our IRAs would be 15% gross income, plus I get 10% from my employer. As such we have other fish to fry for now. The new $10k max is a little overwhelming).

If we had another $10k challenge year? Not counting on it in the least! But if we swung more, I would put the rest to cash and taxable investments. Plus I am allocating all of our IRA contributions between now and April 15th to 2007. So we actually have room to put much more than $10k in this year... We'll see... I know one of these days dh will bring in some decent money and we will exhaust our tax deferred investments, so I put everything into the earliest year that I can.

T Rowe is nice because even my monthly automatic contributions can still be applied to '07. I haven't figured out the same for Vanguard... Which is a bummer because it is nice to put it on auto pilot...

Well, here's to 2008! I guess that makes my roundabout goal $10k for the challenge. Here's to our IRAS.

& I already have $50 to add for my automatic retirement contribution for January! (I may up this to $100 monthly for my raise - I'll find out next week - and project another $300/month come late summer or fall when BM is out of preschool. How I plan to fund my $5k).

I am so into "slow and steady winning the race." I have always been so all or nothing in my past. I can save big, easy, but never been much into saving small. But simply adding $50/month every year can make a big difference. It just depends if I get any raise to cover it!!!!! But this is a new me, and this is a nice start to the challenge.

Last year, retirement was not our focus at all. We put in around $350 and had a $1k windfall to add. So I think it will be easy to beat that. $100/month will go a long way... (Yeah it was one of our most pathetic IRA years ever. But I am glad to have our emergency fund back in place, and now we can focus on grander things).