GOOAAAAAALLLLLL!!!!!

Hi there. If you're reading this, you're probably curious about the title or are somehow interested in better managing your finances in some way. Let me start off by saying that I'm not a financial advisor in occupation. In fact, I'm as far from that as you get. I'm a physician, and no, medical school did not have economics electives...I guess memorizing all of the muscles, nerves, and bones in the body took the bulk of our school time.

So then why am I starting this blog? Well, obviously I have some interest in personal finance, and I think I can help people like me who aren't in business and were never really introduced through their education or training how to manage their money. I certainly have many friends and family who are like that. I've had to learn through trial and error many of the topics I'm going to talk about, and I wished that someone could have told me beforehand, so that I didn't waste the money and time. Well, actually some of it was kind of fun, so I guess the money went to something.

So I myself am a baby professional, my term for those young professionals who are just starting out. I've been out of residency (that's the 'training period' for doctors...for those who don't watch Grey's Anatomy) for about a year. As a resident, I still got paid, but I don't think that period counted, since I was much too preoccupied with averaging at least 4 hrs of sleep a night, and was also paid less than minimum wage, if you did the calculation. Anyway, after residency (and after taking a month off to hibernate and catch up on my sleep debt) I found myself with some actual income and savings potential, which then led to the logical question--what should i do with this money? I did buy a nice car, which is probably the worst financial thing you can do, but hey, that's what I meant by trial and error. I do like my car though....

Since the end of my residency, I've played the stock market, started a business, switched jobs twice, and almost bought a house which would certainly have lost half of its value by now. I've made a lot of mistakes this year, but the good thing is that I've learned from them, and I hope to impart to you some of what I've learned.

So I know you're dying to ask, "What's up with the title?" It's a reference to those brilliant mexican soccer broadcasters. To be entertaining, they really don't have to say anything besides, "GOOOOOAAAALLLL!". Well, maybe if I understood a bit more spanish, I would think differently. Anyway, the title also refers to the subject of this first post, which is the importance of setting goals, financial goals.

Realistically, what should be everyone's ultimate financial goal? To be a millionaire, right? Ok, good luck, you could keep buying lottery tickets every day and maybe you could have a 0.1% chance of winning. Actually, let me backtrack. I feel like Dr. Evil in Austin Powers..."I am holding you ransom for....a BILLION dollars, woohahahaha." Because in reality, a million dollars isn't that much money these days. For most people, you need at least a million probably to retire comfortably. Ok, I just gave away the answer to the ultimate financial goal. The ultimate goal should be to save enough that you can retire comfortably. Depending on your lifestyle, for some it may be a million, for others ten million. You have to figure that for yourself.

Alright, so we've come up with our ultimate goal. How do we get there? So you figure that you have about 40 years before retirement, and let's say you decide you need a million bucks by then. You would then need to save about $25K a year...great, looks like you have to eat Ramen every meal for the next 40 years. But don't despair, because you forget that your investments grow and compound year after year. You don't have to put in quite as much as $25K. So don't get caught up too much with the ultimate goal. Basically, focus more on making good financial decisions. And perhaps more importantly, you should think about mini-goals.

Financial mini-goals are endpoints you want to meet every year, month, week, or even day. You've probably heard that it's important to budget. Well, the reason is because when you budget, you're actually setting mini-goals of how much you can spend. And the more closely you budget, the better. If you set a mini-goal of not exceeding $20 for food every day, those times when you go over, you'll be aware of it and can try to make up for it the next day. If you had only made a mini-goal of checking your expenses once a month and you found that you spent an extra $500, that's harder to make up.

Ok, I think that's it for the first post. The lesson to take home is that it is important to set financial goals, the ultimate being an adequate retirement sum, but more practically along the way, to have mini-goals. One of the most important mini-goals is to just check your finances periodically, the more often the better. I would recommend that you at least do it once a month.

Alright, until next time, may you make some moolah.