create a 5 year plan

I realize that this isn’t a goal for the foreseeable future, but I want to discuss with my aunt about purchasing 5 acres or so from her off the family farm. If I’m going to buy in the area anyway, I’d like to have some family land.

I own property in Florida. 4.6 acres to be exact! yay!

Immediately all of my time and finances are being poured into this, but I still like my goal #2 of property in another state as well.

I feel as if I should have more goals, but can’t come up with any. Isn’t that the point of a 5 year plan? Not a lot of goals, but large ones that you work toward?

Since I’ve pretty well bounced around in life for the last 10+ years and I haven’t gotten very far, maybe I need to get more serious about this. How do you make a 5 year plan? Just write down goals? Hmm… I’ll start with a few off the top of my head and shape it from there.

1) buy property here in FL to live at. I’m already working on this, so it should be complete withing 6 months.

2) buy property in MI as investment and to later have for visiting. By 2012 I’d like to be doing this.

3) career. I’d like to have a career where I work from home, so I can travel on my own time and continue to work. I am gaining good job skills here, and the benefits are excellent, but I don’t want to work here the rest of my life. I’ve thought about medical transcription, but the classes can take up to a year and aren’t cheap. I’ve recently discovered my neighbor is a collection attorney and works from her house. She has skip tracers and collectors that work for her. I’d like to look into this. I’ll say I’d like to make a major career change by 2012 as well.

4) retirement. I’m already working on this. I have a good 401K plan here at work and I have recently opened an IRA, and while the balance is piddly, it is getting there. I’ll say I’d like to contribute $600/year to my IRA for the next 5 years.

That’s a start. I’m sure I’ll add to it. Especially since I haven’t included anything horsey and my life centers around the horses.