Financial goals
December 5, 2016
Most of us, if not all of us have financial goals that we look forward to achieve regardless of the stage of life each one of us is in. However, achieving these goals might not be all that easy down the line especially with various eventualities that shift your priorities from time to time that change your family budget too. Therefore, being realistic as you set your financial goals is very important as well as tracking your progress for you to succeed in achieving these goals.
For those who are already in marriage, achieving personal financial goals will be a big lie especially if you do not sit down together and agree with your spouse how you intend to achieve that. It is better for couples to have similar financial goals based on a complete family budget to achieve what they have planned on achieving as far as their finances are concerned.
As you sit down to plan on your financial goals, setting out your short-term, mid-term and long-term financial goals is only the beginning. These plans may include an emergency fund, a dream vacation, retirement savings, new home, and college savings, among others. With this in mind, you can go ahead and determine how much money you will need for each of these.
Some of the discussions that revolve around a specific financial goal at this stage are the amount of money you will dedicate to that; if it is a school for your child, whether you will go for a private or state school. On the other hand, if it is a retirement plan, you need to base your calculation on when you plan to retire and the kind of life you wish to lead once you retire.
Next, you need to arrange your goals in order of priority and thereafter, determine how much time you have to save for each of the goals set. Normally, short-term goals are set to be fulfilled within one or two years while long-term ones take longer than this to fulfill. You also need to check how much interest your money will be gaining over time where you choose to keep it before that period elapses.
It might be difficult to determine the capital gain yields in future in this case but you can work with an estimate, which will give you a rough idea regarding the earnings to expect. Once you have all that in place, figure out how much you will need to save towards a particular goal each month and do not shy away at the sight of the huge amount of money you require to fulfill it.
You also need to monitor the progress every other month or quarterly and if you discover for some reason something is not working out as per your plans, sit down and review your family budget. This will help you realize expenses you can cut down so that savings can be made available to meet financial goals. Also, ensure that you have provisions for such windfall gains as tax refunds, bonuses, inheritances, and the like.