I've added some milestones to the author bio. The top money numbers have been there for a while, the bottom are the details I need to fulfil to make that happen.

Here are some details:

If I get a 3 percent raise, I can increase my 401k by 2 percent and not see take home pay drop. In 3-6 years that will have the 401k maxed (the plan is to save 1 percent less than the raise percent- this means take home never decreases). Get a 4 percent raise, add 3 percent to 401k type method.

For wife it will take about 7-10 years to max on the same plan. Once my 401k is maxed, I have a spreadsheet which shows us how to take my raise and save it to her 401k (3 percent raise for me is 6 percent increase in her 401k for example).

Our EF was depleted in 2008. We have 1 months expenses now spread out in 6 cds maturing every 16 days. We will be adding $340/month to those starting Jan 31, and $600/mo by years end as some loans get paid off.

The taxable account gets the $600/mo once the EF has 3 months and will take 3-6 years to reach that goal.

College accounts will not be opened until 401ks are maxed.

The dividend income goal is probably not reached until the year I retire or close to it (need some good investment performance to reach that).

Other goals:
1) finance wife's next car for 3 years or less (2009). Once car is paid off we bank the payment for a car fund.
2) pay off 2nd mortgage within 6 years. We currently "round up" a $39x.yz payment to $400. Our cc rebate also pays 1 percent of all purchases to the 2nd mortgage, and when my truck is paid off in 2010 we will pay $700/mo extra. We owe about 49k at 7.6 percent.
3) pay off 1st mortgage before kids start college. Some of the $1100 for 2nd mortgage can be used to pay down the first. Some of this pay down money might actually get invested. 280k is what we owe now.
4) Get $375k invested by age 37 (2010). We are $170k short right now. This gets retirement plan on track.

We added a new investment to our mix over last several months. Wife's Roth IRA was completely revamped with many new holdings, which included one mutual fund only a few months old.

Here are the new holdings (starting from Sep 2008):

T.ROWE PRICE GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY PRGTX
T.ROWE PRICE AFRICA & MIDDLE EAST TRAMX
T. ROWE PRICE EMERGING MARKETS PRMSX
T. ROWE PRICE FINANCIAL SERVICE PRISX
T.ROWE PRICE GLOBAL REAL ESTATE TRGRX
T. ROWE PRICE GROWTH STOCK FD PRGFX
T. ROWE PRICE HEALTH SCIENCES F PRHSX
T. ROWE PRICE NEW ERA FD PRNEX
T. ROWE PRICE SCIENCE AND TECHN PRSCX
T. ROWE PRICE VALUE FUND, INC. TRVLX

These investments are about 5-10% of our total portfolio (10k value of a portfolio valued at 120k). The porfolio gets 25% of our contributions (we contribute about 20k per year to retirement accounts, this account gets 5k).

The Global tech fund is her rollover. The rest are in her Roth (about 3k). The Africa and Middle East fund had the 2007 Roth and pre-September contribtions (about 1.3k).

We contribute $500/month to the Roth. The 8 funds get $50 each month. We then apply the other $100/mo to whichever we think outperform over next 3-5 years. For example we are contributing an extra $100 to both financial services and to the Global Real estate fund- expecting both funds to outperform soon. Once a fund appears to be appreciating we shift the overweight to a new fund.

The Global Real Estate fund is where most money gets rebalanced too. If any fund here returns in excess of 9%, the excess % gets sold into shares of Global Real Estate.

By my calculations all of these funds should have around 2k in them within 3 years ($600/year*3 years=$1800). At that point the overweight will be much more substantial (one fund might get all 5k for that year).

Based on my past investing experience, I can see when things are appreciating... so I know to buy something else when that happens (I remember seeing tech bubble in 1999 and wanting a health care fund for when tech "popped").

I am limited to the sectors T Rowe has funds in, but I am happy with every holding and would only look to add a transportation fund, a small cap/concentrated fund or a leisure fund.

Goal is to amplify returns by buying only what is low. Financials right now, real estate right now.

Ultimately the goal is 1/3 of income coming from my Roth through dividends, 1/3 of income from wife's Roth coming from real estate fund, and other 1/3 of income coming from cash and bonds in traditional IRAs and taxable accounts.

I am reading through many other people's goals for 2008 or 2009. Most of my goals are long term, and I just make sure I do certain things towards the goals each year.

goal 1: 15% retirement contribution (my 401k, wife's 401k, my Roth, her Roth). If all adds up (current plan) it will be ~20% for 2009.
5k to my Roth
5k to wife's Roth
8k to my 401k
3k to wife's 401k

goal 2: get EF back to 12k by end of 2009. We tapped into it in October of 2008 and by my calculations it should be close to 12k by end of year (it is 3k now, gets $300/mo, plus tax return, plus $300 should increase to about $500 by october). HR block income might go to EF as well.

goal 3- take 3 vacations. We are camping Memorial day weekend at Letchworth state park (NY) with my cousins. Also considering a weekend to either NYC or Chicago around thanksgiving, and maybe a Vegas trip too.

goal 4 (this one is the most important one)- make sure I do not kill anyone anytime soon.

goal 5- I would like to get 4-10 clients for my financial planning business as well.

I had Thursday-Monday off.

Thursday was a sick day because both boys had outpatient surgery. DS1 had hypospadius repaired (that means he can now write his name in the snow without a slant to it when he is older if you know what I mean). DS2 had a bilateral hernia repaired.

My parents came into town mid day Thursday and watched the boys while wife and I got the house ready for a party on Saturday (it was DW's mother's 60th birthday).

Saturday was the party and my MIL was shocked. We had 60+ people in our house and it was not crowded at all (good thing). That was first time we ever had that many people.

Sunday my wife made saurbraten for dinner and we cleaned up. Actually I took a nap and my wife and parents cleaned up.

DS1 was being fussy on and off all weekend. Never slept thru night at all- side effect of surgery is he has a stint (tube) up his penis, so I guess I don't blame him for being uncomfortable. I took Monday off from work so wife could work all day and I spent day consoling my son.

Wife balanced the checkbook and the $2500 cc bill which included the party on it could be paid in full.

My kids also got to open 5 gifts from people. They now have some toys to play with- they light up, make noise and keep them entertained. The best gift is a Buffalo Bills bean bag which they take naps in now and can climb on.

Both boys also ate their first meal from a high chair yesterday.

Here is one of the photos MIL got as a gift on her 60th B-day. Picure taken when boys were ~7 months old, they are almost 9 months old now.

Our santa gifts are all wrapped and under the tree.

The boys will be getting 5 gifts from Santa.

They will share a big thing my wife wanted to get them. It is a multifunctional thing. It has this cool thing which blows plastic balls in the air, lets kid fetch it, then put it in this thing which spirals it around and shoots it out again.

My cousin had one for her girls and I played with it for hours.

That gift passes daddy's criteria (I can play with it too).

We got them each a small toy which makes noise and lights up. At 9 months they are really into things like that.

They are each getting their own train set too. Before they were even born I told my wife they were getting train sets for xmas. When my parents came to visit, my father and I went out to get the sets.

Again, the gift passes my criteria (daddy can play with it too).

Know what boobs and trains have in common? Read on for the answer.

I am sure Grandma (wife's mom) and my parents are going to spoil these two with even more presents (trumping the 5 from santa -wife and me).

Any over unders on how many toys each of them get? 2 grandma's, 2 aunts, 3 cousins (on mom's side) and 10 cousins (draw names) on my side?

Answer-
both are for little boys, but daddy's like to play with them too.

I use a free internet radio station called pandora. If you listen to music on a PC, pandora will do a good job of two things:

Playing the artists you like
Finding other music similar to the artists

Here is a url

http://www.pandora.com/

I hope that works. I have been listening to pandora for more than 2 years.

You can customize the stations to play what you want. Tell it which songs you like or dislike as it plays them and it adjusts what it plays. For example last xmas I created a few holiday stations and around 40% of the songs I did not like. This year when it is playing those stations I like most of the songs it is playing based on my feedback.

FREE!

I went to my first HR block employee orientation on Saturday.

Interesting...

Part of the claim HR block makes is the following (paraphrased- I do not have the article in front of me)-

"We are in a unique position to offer lower and middle-class people financial advice".

I agree the ability to get objective financial advice at any income level is tough to come by, and tougher for poor and middle-class people.

My issue is HR block is presenting people with products which might charge a 100% interest rate (annualized) to get this advice. Not really objective, huh?

For example if a family making 30k comes to get a tax return of 3k-5k because of EIC and child credits, it probably cost them around $180 to get the return prepared.

If they choose to get a refund anticipation loan, a co-worker and I calculated the loan to rival that of a payday check cashing place (interest might be more than the amount borrowed) on an annualized basis.

I have decided to start my own financial planning business.

For now I am going to concentrate on 4 areas:
1) Taxes
2) Retirement saving
3) college planning
4) budget/spending

I am going to work on obtaining an enrolled agent status with IRS. I am also planning on taking my series 6 this summer (to provide advice picking specific securities, I need a series 6).

Others have advised getting an LAH to sell insurance as well- anyone here have that?

I passed my tax course with an 85% overall. I think my final exam score was a 4.2/4.4. I only glanced at the final exam score once I saw that I passed.

The final was WAY WAY too easy. I could have passed it 5 weeks ago with what was taught (hint- if you have not taken the course, know EIC, filing status and dependants, and you will be able to get around 66%).