Much like my mortgage shopping voyage, I’m starting from scratch-ish trying to make a financial plan, and I’m hoping to share what I learn in the process, and hopefully other folks can use this as a shortcut to the jump-off point for their own exploration. To begin with, I think my family is in pretty decent financial shape, so this voyage won’t be relatable to everyone. Probably young families blessed with good income. But if you’re in a similar boat, I hope this helps you out.

Continue reading “Our financial planning voyage — Part 1” →

So here’s where I tell you that I’ve already piloted our financial plan to it’s final state, but just forgot to write about it.

Just kidding.

In reality, shortly after I wrote the last post, I ran out of steam. I haven’t read my books yet, and I just this week started picking up where I left off, very much still in the exploratory part of the process. That said, I still think I’ve learned some good stuff.

Continue reading “Financial plan update” →

I’ve made a ton of progress since the last check in. All of the work of piecing together our complete financial picture and researching the fundamentals of financial planning culminated in one long checklist of todos to actually begin to build out our plan. What follows is a version of our punchlist.

Continue reading “The List (Our financial planning voyage — Part 2)” →

As has happened before in this process, after making a bunch of progress, I dropped the ball for a couple months. I don’t recommend doing that. It’s tough getting the momentum back. But if you’re like me and you’re allergic to just finishing things, all you can do is pick yourself up and gin up the motivation to get things moving forward again.

Continue reading “Mission accomplished (Our financial planning voyage — Part 3)” →