Retirement

How do I know if I'm ready for it?

According to this checklist:
6 Ways to Tell If You're Financially Ready to Retire
my score is 5/6.

Will definitely be working on that 1/6.

Personal Finance

I must admit, I haven't paid much attention to this. I started a few months back when I wrote about Budgeting and Financial Planning at Home, but that was about it. But I realized that being on my 18th year of working, I have to take a serious look at my financial status just to make sure that our future is secure.

Here's a very helpful article on Yahoo Finance, complete with calculators and sample worksheets that we can use: Eight Smart Personal Finance Moves

My realizations:

1. Define or refine your life goals - Yes, definitely DOING IT right now. It just so happens that I am exactly in this stage of my life that I am refining my life goals. It's exciting yet scary.
2. Put together a spending plan - DONE
3. Establish an emergency plan - TO DO, gosh I think I'm going into panic mode right now:-)
4. Manage your credit - TO DO, another thing that I have not really paid attention to. We do have some cleaning up to do!
5. Review and rebalance your portfolio - Hmm, not that we have a lot to review and rebalance, but hey, this is another TO DO
6. Know your net worth - TO DO
7. List your accounts - TO DO
8. Estimate your retirement nest egg needs - TO DO
9. Be a part of your community (bonus item) - Have started, but will DO MORE

When I'm through with this, I can probably plan my life better.