Really

In the scope of a family, goals are a good thing to set, and a good thing to prioritize, but they are not important and should not dictate every decision.  There are things that trump goals like medical emergencies, accidents, natural disasters, etc. that always should take precedence over your goals to say, own a home, buy a car, retire early, you get the idea.

Knowing this, it’s much easier to go about setting goals though, because you’ve already found some major priorities.  You can thus take your goals and rank them:

1. Be able to survive an emergency.  A very important first priority, emergency could mean disaster, or losing a job.  It NEVER means buying a new pair of shoes to match an outfit, although it could mean buying a new pair of shoes because your old ones were burned up in a fire.  Insurance does a good job of providing for #1.
2. Do one fun thing a month.  This is determined by your family, but going to a park for a picnic, or even buying a bunch of water baloons and running around getting drenched are extremely fun ways to spend time together and not spend a lot of money.
3. Big purchase goal.  We’re talking house, college, children, Berkshire Hathaway stock, expensive purchases (or expenses) that you can motivate yourself to save for.
4. Retirement.  More important the older you get, read about my experience with a 10-year old financial genius.   This becomes number 1 when you become 35-40 years old.
5. Personal Goals.  This is the fun stuff that you want to do, midlife crisis money if you will.  Currently I’m saving up to buy the game SPORE when it comes out.

Until I thought about my goals as not important, big purchase, and personal goals were on the top of my list.  A few medical issues lately have helped me reevaluate what’s truly important.  How do your goals compare?