I. The Basics: Setting Goals

What are your goals? Not just financial goals, but life goals? Do you want to have a big house, live in an expensive neighborhood? Retire young? Where do you want to work and how much do you want to make?

You can't go anywhere unless you have a map. This step is very important because it determine how much you want to save, invest, etc. I suggest you take some time to figure out what you want. Don't leave the computer now, I'm not suggesting you have to know everything you want to do with your life, but making a road map is key.

I'm taking Millionaire Mommy Next Door's advice by creating a roadmap to my own personal happiness.

I don't have my life completely figured out, but this is what I know what I want from my life. In the next five years I expect to:

• Finish my undergraduate school ( I'm in my third year of college, but I plan to stay for a fifth year to get a BA in government with my business degree).
  
• Get a job working for the government making a modest income for starting salary (I would guess anywhere between $28,000 to $50,000).

In the next ten years:

• My parents will most likely be retired and I want to be close to them and take care of them
• I hope to be married and having one child before I'm 30.
• I hope to get my master's degree in public policy.
• Own a house.

In the next 15 years:

• I want to have adopted a disabled child from a third world country.
• Provide my children with a good life while spending time with them.
• Still taking care of my parents, and not putting them in a nursing home.

Though this probably will not be what will happen in the next 15 years, but it gives me a place to start to figure out my goals. I know what priorities I have set in my life at least where I can build a foundation and make changes as I go along. Based on my own roadmap, I know I want to have a job in which I spend more time with my kids in the future, meaning I probably shouldn't get a time consuming job like investment banking and I won't plan my income on an investment banker's income.

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