Monday, December 31, 2007

Year 2008 Goals

New year is the time for resolutions and so here are my financial resolutions for the year 2008.

Stock
Continue the Employee stock purchase plan at the max allowed rate. Further, save $400 per month for investing in US and Indian stocks. My current watch list includes tata steel, INP, visa (if IPO comes out) and AMGN. I have about $4K earmarked for buying visa and about $2k ready for AMGN. So the $400/month should go into buying tata steel. Further i plan to sell about 400 MSFT once it hits $40 and park the proceeds from the sale for next year trades.

Non Tax funds
Continue contribution to 401K, Roth IRA and HSA accounts to the maximum limit. Maybe in year 2009 or maybe 2010, i need to revisit the decision to contribute to the retirement plans at maximum rate - for i might want to increase the net worth in my taxable investment accounts. I would have to cut corners here to achieve that.

Except for retirement accounts, i dont plan to buy mutual funds, this year too. Further, no plans for Ibonds either. I will starting buying Ibonds in 2009.

Expense funds
Saving up for a down payment is still the main expense fund. The estimated price range for the house is still around $425K. With 70K in hand, we need another 28K to meet down payment + $20K for misc house buying related expense. CD is the preferred way to park this money

The second major expense is saving up for purchasing a used car (that we plan to buy around end of 2009). The saving goal for car purchase fund is $6k. Also i need to sell oldest car by end of summer. CD is the only way to park this money. With $6K this year and $6k next year plus proceeds from the sale of existing car should be sufficient to buy a decent economical car/SUV

The third (and hopefully last) expense fund is for a trip. we estimate to save about $6k for that.

This year, except for the expected rent increase and the personal gym trainer the expenses should not change substantially. So the emergency fund and roll over fund should remain capped at 10+2.5K and 2K respectively.