What are your financial priorities?

[PrincessFiona]

This is a big topic for us right now. We’ve done a lot of comparing ourselves to the Jones’ which is never good.

So in order of importance:
Saving for retirement
Financial support of younger kids. The older ones are more flexible right now. They need to have skin in the game.
Our home
The cabin which will be paid off in a year. We thought it would be our retirement home but have now decided against that. We plan to vacation there a lot if we hang onto it.
Food and life’s necessities
My student loans
Me driving kids on a vacation during the summer
Furniture and nice things. Our furniture is in bad shape, but there is no sense in wasting our money until the dog (culprit) is gone

Right now, vacations are not on the list. I hope that changes when the older three are independent. Soon maybe? Please God!

What do your priorities look like?

Kris


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[civilspouse]

We’ve got one more year of training. I’ve been trying to read WCI things to make a plan and set our priorities. We are lucky to not have loans because DH was MD/Phd but that also means we are getting a late start. Catching up on retirement will be our main focus along with saving for college. Our oldest is about to turn 8 and I’d rather not think about it but I know college will be here in the blink of an eye. We’ve also tossed around the idea of paying off our mortgage ASAP because we hate debt. We are only planning to pay in state tuition at a state school for our kids right now. Easy for me to say 10 years out. One of my considerations for job locations is actually the location of universities. I’d love to give the kids the option to stay at home if they want since we aren’t going to pay room and board.


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[alotofyarn]

Get rid of Js student loans and start more aggressively saving for retirement, emergencies, and the kids' futures.

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[SoonerTexan]

Immediately:
--Finish moving my old 401k to the Roth IRA before our income increases. We started the process last year, but have to be careful with how much we do at once because we are having to pay the taxes out of pocket and transfers count as income when in comes to IBR.
--Keep on truckin' with IBR.
--The good moonlighting started in July. That $$ will go towards paying off expenses we accrued (board fees, etc.) earlier this year when the moonlighting was really light. I found a 15 month interest free credit card to use for this purpose back in January and I like that it gives us a hard deadline to pay it off. Any extra goes towards paying off the van, saving for PreK for next year, a family vacation, and setting aside some $$ for some repairs that our home will need before we sell in a few years.

Long term is really hard because so many things are hypothetical. However, I really like the work we did with the financial adviser. She helped us put together a very solid plan based on a very modest guess of a future salary and went from there--we will simply update it when we has a real contract. It was REALLY helpful to see how our budget/savings should break down when it comes to tempering expectations on what attendinghood will look like.

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

Retirement
College funds
Vacation/travel funds

Creating a reasonable budget to furnish/ make changes to our home. Ideally I’d have a monthly budget to do that so I know how much I can spend each month doing things like buying a new couch, new sheet sets, etc.

Curbing my homeschool related spending...

Figuring out a good plan to handle my income since that money shouldn’t be counted on long term.

Long, long term...we need to get with M’s sister and BIL and figure out a plan for his parents. The situation is obviously going to fall to the 4 of us but I’d like to be planning ahead vs making expensive, desperate choices because we didn’t think of things. Specifically I’m thinking long term care insurance.


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[Thirteen]

Pay off credit card debt from “medical/life/unemployment” fiasco
Replenishing savings account and IRA, diversify investment options potentially as well
Slush fund for “rainy day emergencies” and medical bills (because life)
—-
Fun money for: travel


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[rufflesanddots]

Get a job.

Pay for/save for residency application season and moving.

Replenish emergency fund.

Prepare to buy second car for residency.

Replenish savings / resume retirement contributions.

Start saving for Gs college.

ETA: I guess we should pay off loans at some point... 😂

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[civilspouse]

Retirement
College funds
Vacation/travel funds

Creating a reasonable budget to furnish/ make changes to our home. Ideally I’d have a monthly budget to do that so I know how much I can spend each month doing things like buying a new couch, new sheet sets, etc.

Curbing my homeschool related spending...

Figuring out a good plan to handle my income since that money shouldn’t be counted on long term.

Long, long term...we need to get with M’s sister and BIL and figure out a plan for his parents. The situation is obviously going to fall to the 4 of us but I’d like to be planning ahead vs making expensive, desperate choices because we didn’t think of things. Specifically I’m thinking long term care insurance.


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I randomly was just reading this article about long term care insurance.

https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/lo...are-insurance/

I am not sure of the details of my parents finances but they are both in terrible health and I do worry that my siblings and I will end up having to support them.


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[MsSassyBaskets]

Finish investing in home improvement - a high priority for the next ~6 months to get us settled and ensure we're relatively prepared to sell the house again in a few years without having to drop significant $$ at that time. After our last short-term ownership experience we're planning ahead to position ourselves to both enjoy the house as much as possible and also be prepared to sell.
Build up savings for emergency fund and car purchase - we'll probably need a car while still in training (one is 15 yrs and declining) so we plan to set aside the cash to purchase - We haven't had car payments for 5 years, and I don't plan to start now!
Retirement - I'm doing OK, DH is very far behind. He's getting started but not aggressively enough. We have a lot of catching up to do. In some ways we're banking on a future attending job to help build him back up, but I know it's not wise...
We've talked about DH moonlighting to build a "fun fund" for a vacation sometime in the next year. We haven't been out of the country since our honeymoon, so we would really love to set a near-term goal, but won't be using our "regular" money for this.
At some point in the next year, we will have to start seriously cutting back to make room in the budget for kid #2 and daycare. We will have room in the budget once we're wrapping up expensive home improvements and have replenished the savings, so when that time gets closer we'll switch priorities.

[spotty_dog]

The prospect of financial independence is basically the saving grace for my husband's ability to cope with his job(s) so that has been a major priority from the start. It was challenging at first to fight down those "if a DAWKTER can't afford this who CAN??" feelings. But once we established a savings habit, it's gotten easier -- and once we got ahead of the curve and then our early investments started compounding, it's become MUCH easier.

So I guess I'd say retirement savings (maxing out tax-preferred accounts and then putting as much as we can into regular taxable investing) would be the big priority, then emergency savings (making sure to keep that buffer big enough that we don't have to tap our other accounts in case, oh, the sewer backs up and does $50k of damage simultaneously with a pre-planned $15k roof repair that was intended to stop a leak into the bedroom.) Then vacation, but we started out with only one family trip a year, and we travel pretty cheaply. We do have a timeshare that we visit 3-4 times a year, but that's just a road trip and it's not a big ding in the budget.

After that, we try to do one five-figure lifestyle improvement or home improvement thing per year. Things like a car, or house paint, or a new roof. At some point after that is kids' college...we throw a few grand in their accounts when we don't really have anything else to do with it, but since we started that practice at birth they've almost got undergrad paid for -- and we figure we will be in a good position to cash flow their tuition anyway, so that's dropped even farther on the list. And way, way down after that is furniture and home improvement. But we've gotten there lately; DH has quite the Overstock habit and has gotten us several dressers, a set of shelves, and my new work desk! <3 We're even going to splurge on the $40 for a gallon of SW paint and do the dining room some time in the next month. Nine years here, and we're still living with the "realtor slapped some paint on to stage it" paint...like I said, not a priority during the "live like a resident" post-training stage, LOL.

[mommax3]

What are your financial priorities?

Tithing, saving for retirement, paying for college for our kids (we’re halfway done...6 years down, 6 to go &#128516, travel, cars, home improvement.

[Cam]

Right now, my financial priority is to be able to invest 50% of my earnings on stocks or real estate. I know it's a big percentage, but that doesn't mean it's possible.
I'm definitely saving up for vacations, just like you. But for now, I'd limit it to maybe 2-3 trips a year to save more money.