Father Sez

I want to thank Get Rich Slowly for his excellent post, “What motivates you to pursue smart personal finance?”  It provided me the inspiration for this letter to my elder girls. 

Dear Along and Azah, 

The time is drawing near for the both of you to graduate, seek jobs and find your own financial footings. Your mother and I have tried our best to bring up the both of you and your other 3 siblings, in a responsible manner. All your lives, we have always had food on the table and a solid roof over our heads. Almost all your requests have been met. You have almost never been left with any of your wants unmet.  

You have never ever seen debt collectors come to our house and bang on our doors.

You never had to pick up the phone and lie to the other person that your father is not in, so as to avoid a bill collector. 

You have never seen unpaid bills lying around the house. 

And you have no idea what it is to be poor or to seriously want for money. 

Having brought up the both of you like this, I wonder if I have done enough to instill in you  the motivation to pursue smart personal finance. 

I envy parents who have taken steps when the children are so much younger. There are many examples, some of which are listed below. 

- Money advice to my teenage son,

- Teach your teen the basics of money management,

- College money matters,

- Following our own path.

For the vast majority of people, motivation to pursue smart personal finance comes from two sources:- 

a)  Guidance and examples set by parents or other role models and 

b)  Pain, loss, suffering or set backs caused by lack of money or money mistakes. 

Well, I may not have done enough of (a) and certainly you have not gone through (b). So what do we do now to instill in the both of you the needed motivation? 

You have been writing down your goals for some time now. We have talked about seeking financial independence as one of your major goals in finance.  

Now I seek you both to think hard and write down the reasons why you want financial independence. It could be:- 

a)    Never having to work for a lousy or “kerepot” boss, just because you needed the paycheck. 

b)    Being able to do things that you choose to do and not because someone else wants you to do. Like travel, working with the underprivileged children in Rembau etc. 

c)     Never having to go through the financial pain your Auntie Faridah and your cousins Sophia and Mima went through when she went through the messy breakup with your Uncle. Your mother rented a house for them and they lived with us for almost a year. 

d)    Being able to spend comfortably on your real wants knowing that you have a strong financial base. 

e)    Never having to be a debt slave.  

f)      Doing the greatest charity, which is not being poor yourself.  

g)    Having a sense of purpose in your life. 

Spend some time on this and think about this carefully. These reasons should be strong enough to provide you with a continuous stream of the motivation you’ll need to pursue smart personal finance. Reading again your “WHYs” should keep feeding you the required motivation.  

And believe me, strong and continuous motivation, you’ll need. 

- To protect you from succumbing to the relentless advertising of all kinds of products and services that you’ll see day in and day out. 

- To protect you from so called “well meaning friends” who’ll nudge you into spending just a little above your budget, today, tomorrow and everyday. 

- To protect you from the clever and well oiled banking machinery that seeks to offer you loans to buy things that you don’t really need, so that the banks can live off you. Slaving away to pay them interest. 

There are still many other things for you to learn about smart personal finance. I am still learning myself. However, once you have your motivation embedded strongly and deeply enough in you, you’ll start seeking out this knowledge and it will come. I have no doubt about that. 

My dear princesses,  

You’ll never fully appreciate how difficult it is for parents to see their children go through difficulties of any kind, until you are parents yourself.    

I can only pray that your mother and I have brought up the both of you responsibly enough to recognize good advice and to listen and be prepared rather than to go out unprepared, make the unnecessary mistakes and then learn.  

We have talked about the story of the mother mouse and her baby. The baby mouse did not listen to its mother’s advice and got caught in the mouse trap.  

The last thing, your mother and I want to see is you getting caught in the trap of bad personal finance. 

When you have finished your studies, let us spend more time on going deeper into planning your personal finance moves. After all, getting a good job is also part of smart personal finance.  

For now focus on your studies and do well in your exams.  

Your mother, brother and your two younger sisters convey their best regards and wishes to the both of you. 

Love 

Papa

I have been inspired by some of the pf bloggers doing a review of their 2008 goals, now that about 8% of the year has passed us by now.

And the goal under review is “Imparting to my children the two most important  PF lessons that I have learnt“.

a) Goal 1

To get my elder girls to join a peer group that has pf as a core subject.

My idea was for them to start reading the pf blogs. Over time, hopefully the useful advice given(especially since they are mainly real life experiences) will have some effect on them.

The good thing is that the two elder girls are reading my blog and also the links that are being provided. The both of them have occasionaly commented on my blog.

They have also told me that Mrs. Micah’s mom is cool. The eldest once sent me a text message saying that she had read and commented on “Millionaire Mommy sumthing sumthing”

I have also forwarded them some of the oustanding career tips that can be found in Free Money Finance. 

Some of their friends are also reading my blog. This is a very promising step.  

I think this goal is being on its way of being achieved.

b) Goal 2

Teaching the younger children to “pay themselves first”.

In late November 2007, the two younger children signed allowance agreements with their mother. (I signed as a witness). They would both receive weekly allowances, they had to save at least 10%, and maintain accounts of their allowance.

This has gone on well for the past 2 months. Somethings to note:

 -  the boy just had two entries in his accounts ledger everyweek, the receipt of the allowance and the out to his piggy back. Basically he spent zero. It seems that he had stashed away the cash gifts received during our festive holidays and was spending them.  His mother and he have agreed to bank in this stash and we should now be better able to track his spending.

- Nana, (our fourth girl), is a little more lavish. She maintains the 10% (in fact, it is a lot more that 10% savings), but she also spends on stationery etc. I have talked to her about her seemingly lavish ways. I have to see how this develops. Nana also had her stash and this has also been banked in.

The weekly ritual of them presenting their accounts books for inspection and getting their allowance has had an effect on our youngest girl. She gets her allowance daily. I think she is also a little more careful with her spending, because my wife says that I am not giving her enough.

Anyway, she has also asked for a bank account and this has also been done.

In conclusion, I think this goal is progressing well. 

I like the way, D4L has weaved a story around the pf lessons to his children. I must do the same. Perhaps something from the “Richest Man in Babylon”.

Brip Blap recently wrote an interesting piece on why he thinks net worth is not an awfully important metric to know. This article created an active discussion thread with some people disagreeing.  

My thoughts on this. The principal metrics we should have are:- 

Knowing where we are financially at any one time. 

No matter what our financial goals are, this is an important piece of information to have. Without knowing where we are, it would be next to impossible to get to where we want to go. 

A good indicator is the balance sheet, or our net worth statement. This has to be consistent. For example, whether you want to include or not include your house and mortgage, whether you want to take your house at market value, whether you want to include your vested pension, etc.  

Our financial progress 

The two tracking statements for these are our cash flow statements (how much net cash flow we generate, whether positive or negative) and our profit and loss statements (how much do we spend from what we make). Good indicators of these would be our yearly spending statements, if we have one. 

What I use 

I refer to 2 statements:- 

a)  My net worth statement 

This is a list of all my assets less all my liabilities. (We include the house). Yearly I track the increases / decreases against the previous year’s total. (In 2006 and 2007, my NW decreased by 3.60% and 7.75% respectively. This was basically the costs of university education for our 2 elder girls. Hopefully, we can start building it up now that the kids should be completing their studies). 

Whilst I keep myself aware of the various rules of thumb that suggest the amounts for retirement, I really do not have a target for my NW. For the time being….just more is better… 

b)  Yearly Income Statement 

I classify my yearly income into 5 headings,  

i)                  Employment Income, 

ii)                Trading gains and losses and dividends etc from stocks and shares, (This information is easily available for us.)  

iii)             Property Income. (This is rental from the one property that we have). 

iv)              Business Income. This is from investments in small businesses that I have. Presently income is zero! These businesses are structured in such a way that I have little active participation.

v)                Extraordinary income. This is unplanned, unexpected income that I had not spent any energy on.  

On income our goal is to ensure that (ii) + (iii) + (iv) is equal or more than our estimated expenditure. (Incidentally, I am quite far from reaching this goal.) 

My wife and I have only recently done our first budget. All these while, I have used an estimated amount as our expenses. This year we should be able to get a better comparison.

Ultimately, we have to have some sort of measurable factors to track our financial progress. This is an issue where there may be no exactly right or wrong answers.  The only thing that is right is that you must design one that feels good for you and includes the relevant assets, liabilities, income and expenses.  

I am sure the goals we plot and plan to achieve during the year 2008, will not all have the same levels of difficulty. Possibly some may be easier to do or take a far shorter time to do, than others. 

Similarly major goals may be broken down into a number of sub goals, or as NCN puts them, as micro-goals.  

Say, someone wants to have a 2008 goal as – “Learn more about investments and investing during the year.” This goal may be broken down into sub goals.  

Then,  

Step 1 – Do some research and identify the books I should read, and prepare a list. 

Step 2 – Buy or get the books. 

Step 3 – Read book 1 in week 1 and so on… 

So a relatively complex goal can be broken down into smaller parts which can be tackled more easily. 

Then why not, make the goals less complex in the first place? Why not just have micro-goals that says “Do research…..” etc. 

Well, this is what I have done. 

For 2008, I have some major goals, some not so major ones, and some micro-goals.  

My micro ones for 2008 are :- 

a)  Learn how to draw graphs in Excel. 

This one has been bugging me for quite some time, and I never got down to learning it. Everyone who knows graphs says it is so simple…blah, blah, blah. I have to get this out of the way. So for 2008, a goal it is.  

b)  Learn how to scan documents and save them in my computer. 

This has been another painful issue. Whenever I want to post some documents in this blog, like a page from my daughter’s goal book, I have to ask colleagues or my daughter to help out. No more is this going to be an issue. Learning this is now a goal. 

c)   Learn how to take digital photos and download them into my computer. 

Hah! Bet you are saying, what a Neanderthal, this guy is. There are still people like me all over the place. And in this digital world, unless undigitized people like me get up and do something about it, we’ll get left further and further behind.  Well, I am no longer going to be left behind. 

d) Learn Photoshop 

Why? Because Simple Dollar said so. I am a great admirer of his blog and Trent should know what he is talking about. This is also part of meeting my most audacious goal for 2008.

e)  Learn how to make Yogurt 

I just love yogurt. Those sold in the shops inevitably have sugar and stuff. With 3 young (and usually hungry) children in the house, purchase of yogurt has to be done wholesale, and that is a bit heavy on the wallet.  

And looking at what Wikipedia has to say about yogurt, it looks like I am on a good ticket.  Why don’t I learn to make yogurt myself and cut out the manufacturers, middlemen’s, distributors’ and retailers’ profits? 

My sister in law makes the most divine yogurt. She has told me a number of times that it is easy to do.  This year it shall be done. 

Well, these are my micro, or little, or baby, or simple goals for the year. Maybe achieving these simple ones will act as motivators for me, whilst I plod on the grander goals.  

And maybe I’ll keep on adding micro-goals as these get done and as the year progresses. Or maybe I’ll just tell myself these are part of my goal of learning 3 or 4 new things a month.

Yesterday we talked about Part 1 of my Most Audacious Goal for 2008, which is :- 

Bringing this blog to a readership of 15,000 page views a day.  

We covered the areas of:- 

a)  Knowledge Gathering  

b)  Content

c)   Traffic and

d)  Technical Stuff 

Today let’s follow up on the rest of landmarks in my journey to meet my MAG for 2008. 

a)  Advertising / Business Model 

I have not put much thought on this. Right now, this blog is not seen as a money source.  If I look at the improvements in my own personal life that my foray into blogging has resulted in, this investment has already paid itself over many, many times. By far, the best investment I have ever made in the area of self improvement.  

Still, stories like “I made $3,828.72 in March” does have a ring of excitement. So I intend to embark on this someday soon. 

Maybe I should consider this model ……. And this idea, which is consistent with the message D4L is promoting also looks attractive. 

And of course, there are many graciously given guides like:- 

-   Single Ma’s 7 ways I can earn money while blogging,  

I am sure that with the generosity of the senior bloggers, there will be lots and lots of guidance on this. 

b)  Blog Design  

First, my sense of style and design is something that even my wife is not proud of. And she is a really tolerant woman. Second, I am technologically challenged.   

So when I read seemingly nonchalant statements like ….”I have just tweaked my design..”, I just go green with envy.  

I like The Digerati Life’s bright, cheery and welcoming style. I hope to model my new blog on this. 

From the designs of the other blogs that I read, certain aspects appear appealing. I have noted some of these, and have asked a web designer to create a new design for me.   

I should also have some widgets and whatchamacallits.   

The new design is scheduled to come online by the 8^th February 08. 

c) Blog or Blogger Branding 

This has also not been figured out yet. Most of the blogs I read give me the impression that the bloggers are very passionate and driven people. And mostly serious.  

Maybe Brip Blap and Punny Money give me the impression that they are a little laid back guys, though no less serious in the articles they produce.  

The blogger who stands out, in my mind, with a brand, is the Fabulous Single Ma. When I read her posts, I get the feeling that she is smiling, has a gleam in her eye and is humming something catchy as she writes her posts. That is how she seems to have positioned herself.  

I have no idea what image my blog or posts create in the minds of my readers. I hope it’s that of sincerity with a dash of humor.   

d) Blogging Etiquette 

I have not done any searches in Problogger on this specific matter. Most blogs give the universal advice that we should be polite. For example, MMND’s 12 success tips for newbies. 

Frugal though she may be, cultured and well versed in the social graces is the Duchess. She took the trouble to welcome readers of the Simple Dollar and Consumerism Commentary who dropped by due to the Duchess being mentioned in the former and her guest post in the latter. 

I, too, had a spike in readership, when Zen Habits made a mention of my blog as a Blogger of Kindness. Being a little dense, I did nothing other than feeling pleased as punch. 

Now that I have learnt a little social grace, I hope Zen Habits will accept my belated thanks and so would his readers who dropped by. Please be assured that you were most welcome. And that you are equally most welcome to visit again. 

I am preparing a file under the various headings mentioned, where I’ll make a note of something I pick up from all the reading and learning. Then I have to steadily and ploddingly work on this list. I expect this list to be dynamic and ongoing.

So too, shall be my journey in blogging.  

I think the target will be tough, but not impossible. (I am saying so, only because others have done it before). Whatever the outcome, I am sure I’ll enjoy myself and improve myself at the same time. So there is no downside for me at all.  

It looks to me that my MAG for 2008, is a goal and a plan has been developed to meet the goal.  Nevertheless, it would be great if my MAG could be scrutinized by an independent party. 

I would be grateful if Patrick of Cash Money Life would have a look and see if my Most Audacious Goal for 2008 meets his SMART guidelines and also if Mike of Quest for Four Pillars can confirm that my MAG is not just a wish.

Thanks in advance, guys.  

And the day, I feel brave enough to apply to host a Carnival, I’ll feel that I have arrived! 

This is not about my magazine subscriptions for 2008 but about my Most Audacious Goal for 2008. 

And it is:- 

Bringing this blog to a readership of 15,000 page views a day.  

Why 15,000? Well, FMF has said he can guide me to 100,000 a day, but when I saw that JD of Grow Rich Slowly had 9,000 unique visitors a day (not sure exactly when, but I think some time after he started his blog), I thought, well, let me try for 15,000. 

(Actually, as at time of writing, I am not quite sure if FMF’s 100,000 and JD’s 9,000 refer to the same metric…but 15,000 sounds good.) 

So how do I intend to go about doing this?  I made 7 sub headings, and listed everything and anything that I felt would help me along, under these headings. Especially links that I thought would be useful. 

a)  Knowledge Gathering  

These would be my resources for understanding about blogging and learning tips about building a successful blog. The blogosphere is incredibly generous when it comes to sharing knowledge, so this list grew quickly. The main ones, not in any particular order are: 

i)                  Simple Dollar’s “Building a better blog for 2007”,  

ii)                Steve Pavlina’s “How to build a high traffic blog”,  

iii)             FMF’s “How to get your blog to 100,000 visitors”, 

iv)              Dumb Little Man’s “Blogging for Beginners”, 

v)                Blueprint for Financial Prosperity’s “25 steps to a wildly successful PF Blog”,   

vi)              Problogger’s “31 days to a better blog”, 

vii)           Clever Dude’s “50 tips for new personal finance bloggers”,  

viii)         Yaro Starak’s “Blog Profit Blueprint”. I managed to download this great E Book from his site, but can’t seem to find a link to it now.    

Some of these were in the form of a series, so I copied and pasted them into a form of one long article each.  I shall read all these carefully, make notes of the steps they suggest and follow the steps.  After all, the steps have worked for them. And hopefully should also work for me.   

b)  Content 

To quote, Yaro Starak, content is what makes people read our blog. So content is king! And everyone agrees. Write compelling content!  

(To be honest, I have always thought that I was writing compelling content…..don’t we all think our contents are compelling?)

Anyway, exactly what is compelling content? This was a little more difficult to figure out. But this question was answered in the form of a post from Skelliewag’s “How to avoid fool’s gold and create value packed content.” 

Her blog is just overflowing with guidance and tips on this. 

How do we keep churning out the ideas? How do we keep writing  compelling posts daily?

Problogger gave a helping hand in the form of using mind maps in this and also this way. 

Yaro Starak, too, gives his advice. In his E-Book, Blog Profit Blueprint, he makes the very logical suggestion that Content + Marketing = Traffic.  He suggests that we should have pillar contents. By pillar articles he has listed :-  

-         How to articles on what we have learnt, 

-         Definitions, 

-         Theory or an argument – a fresh view, 

-         A resource, like an E-Book, 

-         List article, eg 7 ways to skin a cat….(the example is mine, by the way), 

-         Technical Blueprints 

And can you feel JHS’s thoughts and feelings as she reads the most powerful, thought provoking and moving post she has read in a long, long time?  

What do we do when we have to go off on an extended vacation, or are unable to post for an extended period? 

The Simple Dollar suggests that we should have posts on standby all the time. Preprogrammed to go online like clockwork, so as never to leave the readers hanging.   

Another great suggestion that I bookmarked just recently was JD’s guest post on Problogger on how his blog grew whilst he was on a 3 week vacation.   

c)   Traffic 

How to increase traffic is included in most of the posts listed as my foundation resources under knowledge gathering.  Not to mention the tons of advise and suggestions available at Problogger. 

As Yaro says, traffic is content + marketing. In his Blog Profit Blueprint, he says that it is through marketing, people find our good content. On marketing he gives a comprehensive list of communication channels (which are, as he says pathways and lures to bring people to our site).  

Again, I have to come up with a list of tasks based on all the guides and shall set about doing them in a methodical fashion.  

d) Technical Stuff 

Shudder! Shudder! 

I am technologically challenged, so this will be an area where I’ll have some fear. I thought I had it all figured out with “pings”, and now it looks like I have to get used to link aggregators, tags, social bookmarks etc. 

I have bought the book, WordPress for Dummies by Lisa Sabin-Wilson and shall have to somehow wade my way through it. (The title is very reassuring.) 

And I just have to grit my teeth and step into the world of “slashes and backslashes”. I believe some people call it “html”. 

This post has gotten a little longer than I expected. Though we are advised not to worry about the length of our posts, I think we shall stop here for the day. 

And tomorrow we shall look at the concluding part of my MAG for 2008. 

Pls click to enlarge 

Since 2005, my 3 younger children and I have sat together and written some “things to do” as their goals for the year. This has been a simple exercise. About 3 times a year, during their school holidays, we would review the goals and the children will, as usual, promise to try harder to achieve their goals.  

In 2007, we started a project to improve the children’s English. This was done by the kids writing up a page or so from a book and then reading it to me. Words that they did not understand were looked up in a dictionary. (I used newspaper articles at first, but later decided to switch to self improvement books, so that the little ones would end up actually having to read a SI book……a lot like killing 2 birds with one stone.

The youngest, Ain, uses an Enid Blyton story book.) 

Nana, 12, used “Your 1 Week Way to Personal Success”, by John O’Keeffe. In one chapter, O’Keeffe suggests doing what he calls a “ME” diagram, to arrive at one’s life picture. This seemed to be something that was quite easy to understand. Nana explained the concept to Ain and they did their 2008 goals based on this concept.  

Their mother and I are very happy with the results and this are my thoughts expressed as a letter to my youngest girl, Ain, 8.  

Dear Ain, 

Papa has seen your goals for 2008 and am very happy that you have chosen goals which are very important. Mama is also very happy. 

You have done your “ME” drawing very well. Papa is sure that as you grow older you will make changes in this drawing. This is a very good start.

Your elder sisters, Along and Azah do not show Papa their goals, because they say they want to keep their goals private. They say they write them down, but I am not sure. Please remind them to write their goals down.

This is very important.  It is good to share your goals with someone you like and trust. They can help you to meet your goals. 

I am going to present one of your goals at a Carnival that is being put up by Ms. Lynnae at Being Frugal. The Carnival will have people from all over the world showing the financial goals they have made for 2008. A Carnival is like an exhibition, so we if we visit the Carnival, we can see a lot of other people’s goals and learn from them.  

This Carnival is on the 2 January 2008. Papa knows you start school on the 2^nd, but we can see the Carnival on the Internet. Papa will show you. 

The goal that I want to present is your financial goal.  

Don’t worry about your use of Bahasa Malaysia. Everyone knows that “Kewangan” means Finance, “tabung” means piggy bank and that “tambah” means add. 

There are some rules to be followed if we want to show our goals in the Carnival. Let us check if your goal meets Ms. Lynnae’s rules. She calls the rules “SMART”. 

Rule 1   Your goal is very specific. So you have met the “S” of SMART. 

Rule 2  Your goal can be measured, which means you must be able to count and check if your goals are met. Yes, you must save RM30. You have met the “M” of SMART. 

Rule 3 Your goal must be achievable, which means that it must not be so very difficult to do. Yes, you can do it. You can save this money from the money that Mama gives you for school and from the money your Uncles and Aunties give you for Hari Raya. You have met the “A” of SMART. 

Rule 4 Your goal must be realistic. So your goal cannot be something that you just bluff. Yes, you also have met the “R” rule. 

And the last rule is that your goal must have a time limit. You cannot  say, that you want to save RM30, but don’t say by when. Since you have already said you will save the money by 31 December 2008, you have also met the “T” of SMART. 

Well, Ain, I think you have met all of Ms. Lynnae’s rules.

Now let us send your goal in and ask her to check. 

Your Mama and Papa are very happy and proud that you have done your goals for 2008. We know that you will try your best to achieve them.  

Love,  

Papa

For the first time in our married lives, we have done our family budget. And after only 23 years of marriage and 5 children. Whilst this may not be exactly Speedy Gonzales’ style, at least it will give us a chance to find out if the old adage “Better late than never” is indeed true. 

I must admit, I was pushed into this by some great posts that I read in the blogs on preparing for self employment.

Posts from blogs such as:- Get Rich Slowly,  Redomestication and  The Digerati Life. 

Then we sort of stress tested our budget. I thought we had it pretty much pared to the bone, when along came Clever Dude’s three parter on “What could you give up if you were in financial trouble”. 

The Dude classified the expenses as luxuries, semi luxuries and essentials. We can guess which would go, if push came to shove. The surgical, practical and unemotional cuts suggested by Clever Dude made me wonder if I could cut more. 

I also like Moolanomy’s useful idea to apply the Pareto Principle to rank our expenses and direct our focus on the bigger hitters. 

So it is back to the drawing board.  

Another 2008 financial goal is going to be cutting down our monthly budget. How, by how much and by when will have to be agreed upon after discussions with my better half. 

After all, we now have some great “how to” guides.  

Ribuan terima kasih, guys. (This is how we offer a thousand thanks in my country).

It’s that time when many of us reflect on the year that is now coming to an end and start planning for the year that is awaiting us. 

Thus, it is most timely that Patrick at Cash Money Life, has today, hosted the inaugural Carnival of Financial Goals. 

The rich pickings of 55 goals, which have been filtered for Patrick’s SMART Goal qualifications, have been listed under headings that should guide those of us with specific financial interests for 2008.  

Alternative / Passive Income, Budgeting, Career, Debt Reduction, Education, Income, Investing, Multiple Financial Goals, Net Worth, Real Estate, Retirement, Savings and even Tips on Goal Setting. 

Goals are issues that people draw up after much thought and internal deliberation. The listing of so many such thought out and deliberated upon goals in one place for us to read and learn from is an opportunity that cannot be taken lightly.  

Thanks, Patrick for this idea, trouble and effort you have taken upon yourself to host this Carnival.  

My wife and I have 5 children. The girls are, Along, 21, Azah, 20, Nana, 12 and Ain, 9 and our only boy, Abang, 13. 

We are just as concerned as any other parent that our children should grow up stable, well rounded, respected and respectful members of the community we stay in. And personal finance is one area we want to make sure our children, if not excel, should at least do well.

Imparting these lessons has been one of my wife’s and my goals for some time now, or rather a wish. A strong wish, no doubt, but still just a wish. 

I call it a wish, as it had no specifics, had no measurable metrics and no time limits.  

Not any more. Thanks to the knowledge learnt from the pf blogs I follow and some serious thought, this wish has now crystallized into SMART goals for my wife and me.  

This is my story. 

The two most important PF lessons that I have learned, are:- 

a)    Paying myself first or living below my means and 

b)    Having a peer group with PF as an “agenda item”. 

I believe that if a person masters or is comfortable with (a) and has a good peer group that avidly discusses personal finance, then he or she is well on his/ her way to financial independence. In fact having (b) should also lead to (a). 

My wife and I have set ourselves the following goals as part of our goals for 2008. 

i)      To ensure that the 2 senior girls, form or join a peer group with PF as a core subject, and  

ii) To ensure that the 2 younger children learn to pay themselves first. 

And our plan to achieve these goals:- 

i)      Goal (i)  

-         We have tried asking them to form a peer group themselves, it has not worked. They are in college now, and though they have made some solid friendships, none of their friends seem interested in this idea now.  

-         I have enjoyed great positive effects from reading pf blogs. Since my daughters belong to the generation that is very comfortable with the Net, I have given them a list 5 pf blogs that I think they may find interesting. It is possible that my girls may well decide that some other pf blog is more their type. This will be fine with us. 

-         We have offered them monetary rewards for every comment they make on these blogs. These comments must be accepted and published by the blogger.   

-         My children have to email me the URLs so that I can keep abreast of their comments. 

-         To comment, the girls have to read the posts. I am sure that some interest will be generated, from posts which should be close to their hearts now, for example those on career guidance, tips on facing the interview, etc.  

-         Over time, we expect (and hope) our children to start having an interest in the lessons these bloggers post, and for this interest to grow. These blogs will then become their peer group.    

ii)     Goal (ii) 

-         Give the younger children (except the youngest), a weekly allowance.  

-         Sign an agreement with them on this allowance. They have to keep accurate and neat accounts and save at least 10% of the amount, (they can save easily by taking packed lunches to school).  

-         Thanks to another pf blog, I have a great model to follow for this agreement. Used by none other than John D. Rockefeller himself, and edited to suit our purpose. I forget the name of the blog that pointed this out. I am sorry. 

-         Fixed targets have been set for their savings for the year. At the end of 2008, we shall go to the bank and deposit their savings in a bank account. I have agreed to contribute 300% of their savings as a top up gift. (So as you can probably guess, the targets are modest….baby steps, baby steps first) 

Do our goals meet the benchmarks for well set go