A few weeks ago, I previewed the SmartyPig savings account, an interesting way to collaboratively save money for goals while earning interest on that money. I like the ease of sharing goals with friends and family and allowing them to contribute, but the redemption options were limited.

By design, SmaryPig prefers that once you reach your goal, you redeem your principal plus interest in the form of a pre-paid debit card or a gift card for a participating retailer. If you want to redeem your funds in a more traditional, less consumable manner, you’d have to call customer service and pay a $25 fee.

SmartyPig announced today that they are eliminating the $25 fee immediately, and soon, those withdrawing their funds after reaching their goals will also have the option of an ACH transfer. I applaud SmartyPig for listening to its customers. Here’s the full email: Read the rest of this article »

About the author: This is a guest post by the anonymous author of the blog Father Sez, a father of four children who wishes to share with and learn from other parents with the goal of preparing children for facing the world independently.

You know your financial life is in a mess. You know the steps you should take in order to straighten your financial life out. You set SMART financial goals and developed plans to achieve these goals. You figure that if you keep plodding at your plans you’ll eventually reach your goals.

Life is not often this simple. There will be obstacles. Old habits may be a little hard to break.

Having a turbo charger will help.

And what would that be? Simple, start your own personal finance blog! A blog that would chronicle your past, your present goals to transform yourself, and your journey to achieve these goals.

a) The Dumb Little Man wrote a great article on the 7 common reasons why people fail to achieve their goals. Prominent amongst them was failure to write down the goals, failing to review them periodically and not having a support group.

Your blog by its very nature will overcome these. This happens by the very process of you writing up your posts, doing the research that may be needed for the post and the comments that your readers would be making. And very importantly on a regular basis.

b) Having a goal buddy is accepted as a powerful aid to achieving goals. They provide motivation, accountability and preserve our determination. I am sure you’ll agree that it’s not easy to find a goal buddy. With your blog, the readers in the community you build will be your buddies. They’ll give you continuous motivation, accountability and determination.

c) Once you have started your blog and announced its supporting mission statement, you’ll start feeling that you have a duty to perform—a duty to studiously and strenuously work to achieve your goals. You’ll feel that you are a role model to your readers.

Read how the act of not following his own suggestions for a mere two months affects Glbl Guy. He confesses this slip up to his readers, whom he calls his accountability partners.

Incidentally, he received a whopping number of comments, every one of them supporting and encouraging him and to overlook the lapses as just being human. You cannot get a better community of goal buddies than this!

d) Receive continuous guidance, tips and resources on improvements that can be made in your plans. The blogosphere is incredibly generous when it comes to sharing information and tips. As you proceed on your blogging journey, you’ll find yourself reading a lot of other blogs. And you’ll find tons and tons of advice and help.

You can get solutions to almost every obstacle that you may meet in your own journey of financial transformation. Tips on frugality, 100 ways to reduce your energy bills, how to prepare your budget, financial calculators, or understanding risk, all are answered in other blogs.

Many of the blogs I read and respect were set up for this very reason.

For example, Flexo created Consumerism Commentary to “hold himself accountable for his finances.” Ana of Debt Free Revolution wants to detail her debt reduction efforts and strategies.

Present day technology has made it easy to create and maintain a blog. While some people may swear by online tools that help in our goal setting and achieving process, I suggest that starting a personal finance blog (or a fitness/health blog, if getting rid of excess weight is your goal) is a far better option.

Just starting a blog for the sake of starting a blog will not be of much use. You must first have a will, a will to transform your life. When you have this will, the blog will turbo charge your journey to transformation.

To start your blog, visit WordPress.com. If you are joining the personal finance blogosphere, add your blog to the index at pfblogs.org and get insight about running your blog at the MoneyBlogNetwork Forums.

To read more about finance and family from this author, visit Father Sez and subscribe to the blog’s RSS feed.

As January comes to a close, it might be a good idea to take a look at the year-long goals I created for myself at the beginning of the year and my progress so far.

Goal 1: $100,000 in additional income. As of today, I am right on track for earning $100,000 outside of my day job. Anything can happen this year, however. I have to consider the possibility that this income will be reduced to almost nothing with a slight change in Google’s algorithms, for example. I will also be voluntarily reducing certain portions of my income next month in the hopes of retaining consistent income growth in other areas. (Text link ads will be phased out on Consumerism Commentary and a number of other websites.)

Goal 2: Contribute $15,500 to my 401(k) and the maximum to my SEP IRA. In January, I contributed $861 to my 401(k), not including my employer’s matching contribution. In order to meet this goal, I will need to increase my contributions. I’ll add a few more percentage points during the next open trading window which will likely occur around the time I receive my raise and bonus (if I do receive anything). The timing of the next 401(k) increase will depend on some other job-related factors.

When I finalize my taxes, I will have an idea of how much I will be able to contribute to my SEP IRA.

Goal 3: Eliminate $13,000 of student loan debt. I’ve started by increasing my monthly payment from $127 to $250. That’s obviously not enough to get me there by the end of the year. After tax season, I’ll have an idea of how quickly I’ll be able to pay off the remainder. With the interest rate massacre occurring among the high-yield savings accounts, I am anxious to use some savings to pay off the loan (while keeping in the mind I’d like to keep enough lying around in savings to cover a down payment at some point).

Goal 4: Accumulate $40,000 in savings for a down payment. I added to savings this month, but not by much. My “Relocation Fund” is approaching $5,000, but once I pay my taxes, I’ll have a better idea of how I can redistribute the savings towards various goals.

Goal 5: Choose two or three charitable organizations, grant $5,000, and contribute $10,000 to the charitable fund. In my 2008 budget, I set aside $5,000 in both June and December for charitable contributions. I haven’t decided on any organizations yet, but I am thinking about contributing to the group I used to work with despite last year’s decision to disassociate myself.

Goal 6: Increase net worth to $210,000. Thanks to the stock market, my net worth has made no progress in the first month of 2008. My non-invested assets have increased this month, but everything else is down. Almost all of these investments are allocated in equities to last until retirement, so this “fluctuation” isn’t bothering me right now. If poor stock market performance continues this year, I will have a tough time making this goal.

All in all, it’s “too early to tell” whether my progress so far this year will help me approach my final goals for the year. How about you? Are you on track for meeting your goals and resolutions?

This article is part of the MoneyBlogNetwork’s monthly group writing project.

Now that I set my financial goals for 2008, I have to start taking steps to achieve them. This is only the second year I’ve set goals like this for myself, and after good results last year, I’m feeling confident. Do you set goals for yourself? Feel free to share them within the comments, particularly if you have your own blog and have written about your 2008 goals. Feel free to include your link in the comments below.

Here are some bloggers’ goals.

No Credit Needed: 15 Resolutions and Goals for 2008
AllFinancialMatters: Share With Us: What Are Your Goals for 2008?
Get Rich Slowly: My Three Goals for 2008 and How I’ll Approach Them
Mighty Bargain Hunter: Thanks for 2007 and Goals for 2008
FiveCentNickel: Setting Financial Goals for 2008
Being Frugal: A Look Ahead: Goals for the New Year
Smart Easy Money: 10 Financial Goals for 2008
Single Ma’s Fabulous Financials: Single Ma’s Goals for 2008
Frank the Financially Savvy Atheist: Goals for 2008
Blogging Away Debt: Out 2008 Financial Goals

If you have goals to share, let us know in the comments.

I noted recently that most people fail at financial new year’s resolutions. That may because of the tradition that the typical “resolution” is a light-hearted attempt at improving one’s self, many times uttered in a drunken state, without much of a plan for attainment. If you want to succeed, set a real, solid goal, devise a plan for getting there, and check your progress.

After reviewing my progress over the last year, I am in a better position to set some specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely (SMART) goals for the coming year. Keep reading Consumerism Commentary throughout the year, and subscribe to the RSS feed (more options and info here) to check in on my progress and give me a hard time if I start to slip.

Continue reading for my goals and resolutions. Read the rest of this article »