Savings Goal 2020

The time has come to set a new savings goal for 2020. A new year should makes us evaluate the past year and look forward to what we want to achieve in 2020.

2019 was for sure my best year so far in my relatively short FIRE journey. For sure , when the market helps, the results on your portfolio growth can be overwhelming.

If you happen to be lost about what FIRE is, read this first.

As you can read in my savings report in December, I did fail on my savings goal for 2019. Not by much, but still I feel I could have made it.

But comparing myself to other people, helps me realise that I am in better shape than most people. Wehn reading this survey, I was shocked by the results. Most people are living paycheck to paycheck and are not able to save any money at all.

The Reality Check

It happens that for 2020, I want to save more money than last year. But on the other hand, I have to be realistic and try to preview my major expenses this year that could impact my goal.

Moving to a new and unfurnished apartment, will bring extraordinary expenses to the table.

So if I want to increase my savings, with rising expenses in the next few months, I will have to make some cuts in other budget domains such as travelling for example.

In 2020, me and my wife have decided to cut on our annual travel budget.

So anything with expensive flights and expensive accommodation is out of the game. We still plan to do some travelling within Europe but really keeping it low-cost.

Talking about money with your partner and making sure you share the same vision, is one of the keys to a healthy relationship.

Setting Up The Goal

When setting up a goal, good practices say that we should follow the SMART approach.

SMART is an acronym and stands for:

  • Specific (simple, sensible, significant)
  • Measurable (meaningful, motivating).
  • Achievable (agreed, attainable).
  • Relevant (reasonable, realistic and resourced, results-based).
  • Time-bound (time-based, time limited, time/cost limited, timely, time-sensitive)

Let’s be specific…

I want to save 50K€ in 12 months which translates to 4167€ a month!

Is it measurable?

Yes, I will track my income and expenses each month so I can have a pretty good idea of my progress. I am already assuming that the first 6 months of the year will be the worst.

Can I say it is achievable?

I can say yes looking to the most relevant indicator, the income. Based on the predictable income, I am pretty confident that it is possible and it is not an extreme savings rate. Also assuming I will be increasing my side income in 2020, it should increase its likelihood.

Do I consider it relevant?

A big YES on this one. Increasing the savings rate is one of the major foundations of FIRE and one of levers I can easily tweak.

Time-based?

Yes it is clear that I have 12 months to make it happen. I will try my best.

What is your savings goal for 2020? Let me know in the comments below.