Mint's "Goals" Depress Me.

It's been a while since I've written on here because I've been so busy lately. Which is a good thing. I'm working a full-time job, spending some time on a side project, and not spending all that much money. All in all, I'm doing "good." Heck, I'm doing amazing right now in relation to how I've done at any point in my life before - financially, personally, etc.

Yet I feel so far away from reaching any of my goals. Mint's new Goals feature makes my future look terribly bleak. Especially given that my current salary -- of about $120k per year, give or take -- is temporary at best -- and even WITH that salary I can't save enough to reach my "goals." At least according to Mint.

I made four different goals for myself...

Emergency Fund -- I have my $8k in that, and it's the only goal I'll reach.

Save for Grad School -- I need to save $110k, I've saved $1.4k. Yikes. At this rate I'll go to to grad school by the time I'm 90.

Buy a Home? Yea, right. I need to save $207k for a downpayment. I haven't really saved anything for a downpayment yet, but I'm counting my various non retirement investment as savings for a downpayment (which, it is if I ever want to buy a house.) Ok, so how much do I have saved now? A whopping $13k. Mint so nicely reminds me that I'm "4 years and 10 months behind" my savings goal. Granted, I wrote that I want to buy a million dollar house - but that's not unreasonable where I live. That's a pretty small house where I live. And I'll never do it. Ok, so I'll rent forever. Or I need to more to Kansas (I guess I'm renting forever.)

Retirement? Well, I'm doing OK on that goal. It doesn't LOOK like I'm doing ok since according to Mint I need to save $6,362,665 by the time I'm 65 to hit my retirement goals. Yikes. Yea, so that's giving me $80k per year in retirement income and I doubt I'll need that much money when I retire, but I wouldn't mind having it. I have $22.8k saved so far, at 26. You may say I don't REALLY have $22.8k saved because that money will probably have to go to the down payment on my house one day when/if I want to buy one. Which SUCKS because I don't want my retirement savings to go back to zero.

I know it's good to be honest with yourself about your goals and how much you have to save, but really this is just terribly depressing. And as I contemplate seriously applying for graduate school next year, I am forced with knowing that grad school will make my goals even further from ever becoming a reality. It almost makes me want to give up. I'll never own a house and never have enough for retirement. I'll be lucky if I can buy myself another car when this one dies.