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Last year, around this time, I didn’t do much goal setting and so I never really had much of a benchmark to judge my performance against. That being said, had I set goals for 2006 I probably would’ve shattered them because many of the things in my life, both financial and otherwise (though here we’ll only focus on the monetary ones, this is a personal finance blog after all), have exceeded my expectations on a daily basis.

So, what are some of my/our goals for this year?

• Maximize both my and my fiancée’s contribution to our 401(k) plans.
• Maximize both my and my fiancée’s contribution to our Roth IRAs.
• Save at least 20% of our incomes and put it in a Vanguard Target Retirement fund.
• Generate more passive income than what I earned actively in the first year of my full time job.
• Donate more to charity in 2007 than we did in 2006 (~$2,000).

Now, if you have regular goals, you need to have stretch goals that you really really want to get but may be a little out of reach (or out of scope)… so here are a couple of my/our stretch goals.

• Generate more passive income than what I earned actively from my full time job.
• Research all the options and then open a 529 plan.
• Increase total net worth by 25%.
• Buy an investment/rental property.
• Donate $5,000 to charitable organizations in 2007.
• Start a scholarship in both my high school and my fiancée’s high school.

We’ll have to take a six month look at this and see how we’re progressing, but I believe the regular goals are reachable, the stretches may be… well, a stretch. I’d claim victory if we knocked out a couple of those.