During this post, as I’m typing, I’m trying to come up with the formation a new set of financial milestones called “Alternative Income Milestones”.

Reference Material:

Below are the poverty level guidelines in 2009:

2009 Poverty Levels

Family Members	Poverty Guideline
1	$10,830
2	14,570
3	18,310
4	22,050
5	25,790
6	29,530
7	33,270
8	37,010
for more than 8 family members, add $3,740 for each additional person.

Even with our house mortgage gone (next Feb.), we will spend more than the poverty level guideline for a family of 4.  Looking at the table, we should be spending a thousand or so more than the poverty level for a family of 8 (if we stay frugal, and don’t let lifestyle creep set in).

So why am I bringing this up?

Well, I need a new set of financial milestones now that we will have overcome our mortgage milestones, so I thought I’d use a modified version of the US poverty levels for financial milestone markers.  I’m creating these milestones for my taxable brokerage account and my Roth IRA (I’m excluding my 401(k) balance from these milestones).   The idea is that I want to have my passive income (dividend from stocks, bonds interest, and any other form of passive income) to produce enough to pass the set of milestone markers that I am about to create.

Alternative Income Milestones (I added these to my financial spreadsheet labeling the Sheet tab: “Alternative Income Milestones”)

	Levels	Amount Milestones
	1	$5,000
	2	$10,000
	3	$15,000
	4	$20,000
	5	$25,000

I estimate that if I just save the extra money from my house payment alone, it will take me about:

• 9 years to accomplish Level Milestone 1 (at a 4% return rate).
• 7  years to accomplish Level Milestone 2 (at a 4% return rate).
• 5  years to accomplish Level Milestone 3 (at a 4% return rate).
• 4  years to accomplish Level Milestone 4 (at a 4% return rate).
• 3 1/2  years to accomplish Level Milestone 5 (at a 4% return rate).

Clearly, I don’t want to wait almost 30 years to go through these levels…  I’ll have to come up with a way of making additional money (or earning a higher yield) to speed up the process.

I figure I have about 3 stages to go through before I make it to a financial independent state.

March 1st 2010, will be my start of stage 2, the “Alternative Income” stage.

Hopefully, we’ll do as well with these milestones as we did with the mortgage milestones…