Derailed on the 2007 Goals

I set my 2007 goals in July as a monthly challenge for the WIRR message board. I think I was overly ambitious. I just don't feel like I'm going to get them accomplished. I just don't make enough money to "git r done".

However, I'm not completely off track (more likely I was thrown onto an old unused side track collecting rust and tumbleweeds in the rail yard of my financial life.) A couple of my goals should be met by year end, just not all.

I started paying my parents back for the money I borrowed to apply for law school back in 2003. Granted, I'm only paying them $10 a month, but I finally realized that paying $0 every month meant the debt didn't get any smaller. Plus I coerced my mom into depositing the checks into our joint checking that we've had since I started college that I don't have checks for any more and would really have to put some effort into accessing. When the full debt has been paid, she'll move it to their account. That way my father doesn't start flipping out over the fact that the money is getting repaid so slowly [nevermind that it's interest-free and that they didn't ask me to start paying it yet... once he remembers I owe him money, I'll never hear the end of it.]

I may get Law Loan#2 under 10K as planned... this one is questionable, but still within the realm of possibility. I've been steadily throwing 1/3 of each bonus I get towards repayment on this. However, an extra $30 here and there only goes so far when the interest eats up $20 of the payment. But the more I knock off the principal, the further the regular monthly payments seem to stretch, so I might, with a lot of luck and few more bonus checks, meet this goal.

Absolutely off track on maxing out my Roth for the year. I just can't afford to put in the over $300 a month I would need to contribute to get this done. I am still making my $100 of contributions every month, which over a year would get me to $1200... leaving me pretty short of the $4000 needed to meet this goal. I have been diligently putting 1/3 of every bonus check into this account as well, but so far that has added up to just over an extra $100. I think that unless I get a sizable Christmas bonus, I'm not going to accomplish this task. However, when all is said and done, I'll still have more saved for retirement than I did when the year started, so it's been worth the effort.

I may need to revise the plan to max out my traditional IRA in 2008 as well... I will run into the same problem on that as I did this year. I just don't make enough money to put that much aside for retirement.