First Financial Goal

Now that I have been making an effort to change my mindset from hobby to business, I realize that I have been doing pretty well at making some money.  NOW that I won't be putting ALL that money back into inventory I feel it is necessary to make some goals for that cash.........or it will all get spent and used up leaving me scratching my head at the end of the year wondering where it all went.

I have made a decision and the extra money will go into savings for ANOTHER VEHICLE.

1. Our current vehicle is 10 years old.  It's running a bit rough and it is no longer a vehicle we would feel comfortable taking on a road trip.  It smells like something is burning and occasionally emits a puff of smoke from under the hood.  We won't be getting rid of it (trading it in as we have done in the past) because we have a 14 soon to be 15 year old son.  We will do the upkeep on it to keep it.

2. Our current vehicle HATES WINTER, namely the SNOW and ICE.  Since we live in an area that experiences snow and ice for 5-7 months of the year, this has become quite the pain in the butt.  I drew you a picture to demonstrate why:

Those hills are killer and our car doesn't like them even though we have $400 snow tires on it.  It isn't AWD or 4WD and I realized this year that I am tired of sitting at home every time it snows or is really icy.  I don't want to be a captive of the weather. A new vehicle will either be AWD or 4WD.

3.  Our current vehicle has an AWESOME trunk and I love the space, but if I found a really cool end table or trunk or hutch.......I get to admire it and leave it there.  I don't want to leave all the BIG goodies there anymore that could be flipped on Craigslist or Facebook.  A new vehicle must have ample space for larger items.

We have narrowed it down to 4 vehicles:
1. Ford Edge (I just love this car even though it is kinda lacking on requirement #3. DH gasps and turns blue at the price tag.)
2. Subaru Outback (I love this car as well and it meets all the above requirements.  I probably couldn't bring home an entertainment center, but end tables would fit nicely. There is still gasping and turning blue on this one, but not quite as much.)
3. Ford Escape (DH wants to look at this one even though I'm not too keen on it.)
4. Minivan of some sort. (I don't like minivans, but when DH and I think of practicality this always comes to mind.  And some even have AWD now.....I guess we'll look.)

My goal this year is to see how much money I can put away for a down payment.  I'm really curious to see how much that will be!  I made a ticker on the sidebar to keep track of progress. I had a hard time coming up with a number, so I choose $1200 to start.  To me that seems like a HUGE stretch since (true confession coming) ................I am not a saver.  *Bows head in shame*  I do know though that we would like to put enough down to finance through either our bank or credit union instead of the dealership like we have always had to do done in the past.

What are your financial goals for this year?