Financial milestones before 30

I recently stumbled upon a blog post titled 20 Financial Milestones You Want to Reach in Your 20′s. SIne I'm almost done my 20's (have just over a year left), I figured I would read through it, and see how I stack up.

# 1 – Finance a dream vacation…in cash - Nope. Since moving out on my own I've never even had a vacation away to anywhere that wasn't visiting family.

# 2 – Pay off your student loans - Yes! I did this.

# 3 – Automate paying your credit card bill in full - Definitely not. My credit card rarely sees a zero balance. I have never been able to save up an emergency fund, so my credit acts as that.

# 4 – Get rid of all bad debt - Good debt is classified as being tied to an asset that appreciates in value (like a house), while bad debt is tied to assets that depreciate, or aren't tied to assets at all. I only have "bad debt", so nope.

# 5 – Build an adequate emergency fund - Already explained my no on this.

# 6 – Make your first, and last, investment mistake - I haven't done any investing other than standard RRSPs, so I haven't made any mistakes.

# 7 – Develop a statement of cash flows - Do this on a regular basis along with my budget. I basically only do a cash flow based budget.

# 8 & 9 Max out a Roth & Contribute to your 401(k) - I live in Canada, so this doesn't really apply literally. But taken as retirement savings in general, I do contribute, but have never maxed out my annual allowance.

# 10 – Get a degree or certification that increases your earning power - Working on it.

# 11 – Take a career risk - Done. I had a nice comfortable position at a life insurance company and quit to start an accounting career at a real estate company. So far, it's working out, but not without the occasional regret.

# 12 – Negotiate something - Don't think I have. Oh wait, I have negotiated for better cable/phone prices. I guess every little action counts for something.

# 13 – Earn your first side grand - Who has time to earn side money? Not me.

# 14 – Start a sub-savings account for an upcoming financial goal - Nope. Working on emergency fund is more important, and I don't have very much extra money to saving with.

# 15 – Set a target retirement date - Haven't set one officially, but I doubt I will retire before 65. Looking at it another way, I assume I will work until I am at least 65. Who knows what the work world will look like at that time.

# 16 – Monitor your credit - Yes. I check my credit report once a year. And have never had any unpleasant, or unexpected, surprises.

# 17 – Say no to a financial salesman - Yes. Just recently I declined to trade in my term life insurance policy for a whole life policy. I found this was a little easier since I am already familiar with life insurance.

# 18 – Give just enough to make it hurt - Nope. I will admit that I give very little.

# 19 – Invest $1 for every $1 you spend - Ha!

# 20 – Start a 529 College Savings Plan - Again, as a Canadian this doesn't apply. But I do have an RESP for my son. I don't contribute much, but every dollar I do saves him several in the future.


Overall, I can say yes to about 9 or 10, depending on how liberally I choose to accept a yes. Not bad, but not stellar. How do you stack up?