These are always disjointed.

I came with my net worth statement, our spending for the month, and some savings goals.

Home value dropped by 2% since last month.
Fortunately, our equity hit a peak.

Thanks to my weakness of eating out, and for including Nov/Dec utility bills as spending for one month, and the state self-employment taxes, and the purchase of the gold coin (really just a currency trade), we came just under 25% of saving our net income.

I challenged myself to save more money this next month, and that should be a cinch, considering there are fewer days and I won't be paying state self-employment taxes.

We are going to aim for saving 25% of our net income for: a car, the Roth IRAs, leaving $3200 for... uh, college? gold? emergency fund? home improvement?

Hubby would like to be the one this year to maximize his Roth IRA contributions, as he doesn't care for his new company's 401(k) plan. If I should continue on with my contract agency, or net a full-time permanent job, I'd be okay with putting 13-17% pretax contribution into a defined contribution plan. My company's plan improved greatly six weeks into my participation.

I am suspecting now that not all middle-income American parents of children under 10 are able to put 16% of their money in retirement, pay for childcare, buy cars in cash, set up and fund their kids' college funds, prepay their mortgages, and maximize their Roth IRA contributions. I tell myself this so I can be okay with my 25% savings. However, are all of those strategies expected to be doable? I'd be sure to take notes if someone with 2/3rds of our income in our neighbourhood and our family situation can tell me how they do it, without "oh my daddy gave me a house. My parents weren't poor uneducated renters for most of their lives. My grandfather wrote the screenplay to 'Casablanca' so I have this big trust fund" exceptions.

So $21,000 is my minimum goal for savings for the year: $8000 maximum for hubby's Roth IRA contributions for this year and last; $8000 for a car; $5000 for my own Roth IRA contribution. This does not help me with the savings, home improvement, garden/landscaping, and emergency fund.

Again: how do families with children do this?

If I'm feeling flush, I may look into paying for disability insurance. I read a neat post on an investments community about the hidden, major investments we can make in our health and protection of our assets.