Keeping Momentum While Saving

falling-money I often wonder why some of our friends seem to have such a hard time saving any of their money. They go from paycheck to paycheck, always seemingly in some sort of financial strife.

I think it’s because we have a reason to save. One that is very important to us. One that keeps us on track in the face of temptations. We have both short and long term goals that require us to save financially in order to reach them.

We have the mindset to achieve our goals. I hear comments all the time about how “some day” a person would like such and such. Yet, these same individuals do little in the way of saving for this dream or making any changes or strides towards ever achieving it.

Maybe the “idea” of the dream is more appealing? Maybe they don’t feel like it’s an attainable dream? Whatever the reason, unless you understand what your dreams are and set goals to help you reach these dreams, they will always remain something that you would love to have “some day”.

I talk with my husband frequently about our goals and dreams for our family.

Our main short term goal is to be able to travel to Australia each year to visit family and expose our kids to their Australian heritage and culture. This is a goal that is important enough to us that we are not easily swayed to spend until we have saved enough for our trip. I think this is key when it comes to saving. You have to be saving for something that is really important to you. Something that is more attractive than the other “noise” that might entice you to spend along the way.

As for long term savings goals, we contribute to both my husband’s 401k and Roth IRAs for both of us. We also have plans to start college funds for the kids and to save for a large down payment on another house in the next three years.

We would like to keep our current home and rent it out and purchase a slightly bigger (or better laid out) home to live in. We are planning to save a large down payment so we can keep our mortgage payment close to what it is now. We may even change this goal and decide to sell our home in order to extract equity so with our next house we will not have a mortgage at all. But, regardless, we will be heading towards our long term goal of Financial Independence and Flexibility.

Our ultimate long term dream/goal is to have the flexibility and financial independence to travel to Australia more than once a year, if we want to, or to stay longer than the 3 weeks we currently stay. It’s a big goal.

But, I really do think it’s doable, financially. It’s the flexibility part that will be hard. And while the main crux of our goals (travel) are not financial, they rely on finances to make them happen.

The point is, that not only do we understand what we are working/saving for, but we are making strides every day towards those goals. While I was writing this I took a little break to read some other blogs and noticed that The Simple Dollar wrote about this very thing the other day.

Now, I don’t want you to think we don’t ever do anything fun or that we only spend money when we travel to Australia. I still have a weakness for Target and buying plants in the Spring and I crave (and generally have) frozen margaritas on a restaurant deck during warm weather. I try to maintain a healthy balance of “planning for tomorrow, while living for today”.

We still go out (though, it’s hard with little ones…thank God for my parents who watch them occasionally!). We are zoo members, we go on hikes and to parks, we garden, we go to festivals and sporting events, we go camping, we go to parties and host barbecues, we go out to eat, we spend lots of time with family and we have a great group of friends in our neighborhood, and beyond, that we socialize with often.

But, we don’t buy a lot of stuff. We don’t have new cars. We don’t have a big, flat screen TV. We don’t do lots of clothes/shoe shopping. We shop for the kids at consignment sales and take hand me downs. We work at keeping our grocery spending down. We keep within limits of a budget, but we allow for fun.

What keeps you motivated to save? Do you have short and long term goals that keep you motivated and on track?