“It’s not personal, Sonny. It’s strictly business.”
In The Godfather, we watch Michael transform from a nice college kid into a cold-hearted killer. He manages to convince himself that taking out a crooked cop who had earlier broken his jaw was simply part of the family business. In reality it was deeply personal. The man had attempted to kill his father. 
This site has mostly focused on the software available to help individuals manage and plan their personal finances. The explosion of these tools has been astounding and is become such an opportunity that the giant investment companies of the world are also getting involved. Learning about these tools has been great for me personally as I’ve discovered how to easily track my spending and my net worth. I now check the Personal Capital app almost daily to monitor my net worth. I monitor my spending on Mint.com. I’ve learned about ways to create a professional portfolio for an almost nominal fee via a whole bunch of great websites. It’s mostly been about other people’s business.
However, on a personal level, last year was a quite a financial roller coaster. We bought a house in California and it has made me realize that I need to get stricter with my spending and serious about my savings. So for 2015, I wanted to set some goals to help my personal financial situation. I found Graham Clark’s MoneyStepper Savings Challenge and joined the group in hopes that the additional accountability will help me achieve my goals. In other words, this site is about to get personal.
The MoneyStepper Savings Challenge has two parts. The first is a goal to save a certain percentage of your income. The second part is to increase net worth by certain percentage. What percentage? Whatever your pick. While I’ve already been tracking my spending and know my net worth, I haven’t had specific, measureable, achievable goals. So here goes. For 2015, I’m going to save 10% of my income and increase my net worth by 10%. I don’t know if this is going to be a complete joke compared to others in the blogging community but I do know that it’s an achievable goal for my family.
My commitment to the readers is to write about my progress and talk about what we’re doing right as a family, and analyze where we’re going wrong.
You can learn more about the MoneyStepper Savings Challenge at the MoneyStepper site.
