Thursday, December 27, 2007

New Year's Resolutions

Goal 1: I mentioned in a previous post that one of my New Year's Resolutions is to pay off my car much more quickly than the current payment schedule calls for. To quantify this goal, I found a calculator that allows you to plug in different additional monthly payment amounts. It then tells you how much money you'll save in interest and how many fewer months it will take. The one drawback is that I recently sent in a large-ish check to reduce the principal, so I had to do some rough calculations to factor that in.

Using the calculator, I aim to pay my car off in 18 months (current schedule calls for approx 28), and save myself approximately $141 in interest.

Goal 2: To learn more about personal finance and investing. This one is a bit harder to quantify. However, quantify I will. To meet this goal, I will read at least 2 finance books this year (fivecentnickel has some suggestions here and here) and keep up with the personal finance blogs I subscribe to (see the Finance section).

What are your New Year's Resolutions?

2 comments:

Roger Sramkoski said...

1. Post at least two solid technology entries in my blog every week.

2. Work out (lift/bike/run/jump rope) at least four days a week for at least an hour, including warm up and cool down periods.

3. Pass at least four of the seven exams required for a Microsoft Certified System Engineer certificate.

Yeah...I think I'll be ambitious this year.

Anonymous said...

Psst... this calculator allows you to account for one-time payments on a loan ("balloon payments").
http://ray.met.fsu.edu/~bret/amortize.html
- SBCB