Choose Your Starting Point

Setting a goal to what you want in life, either material or non-material is important, as it keeps you focused on why you are working towards it. It isn’t always clear where you should start out and that’s why you’re here! What you need to do is start on a path towards your ultimate goal on achieving your personal success.

Set Your Type of Goal

If you have a goal of a material need, such as a really awesome car that you’ve been desiring for a long time, then a great starting point is to assess where you are financially. If the car that you want is $50,000, and you’ve only got a few hundred dollars, you are a far way off. However, the point of a goal is to reach and achieve. The next step is assessing how much you make in a year and gather your weekly, monthly and yearly recurring expenses. Don’t forget to set a budget for other unplanned expenses, (i.e. car problems, house problems, medical issues etc…), because having emergency funds is crucial on it’s own. If you are looking on a personal goal of losing weight or advancing in your career or learning a new skill, the principals of achievement are the same as well.

Steps Towards Your Goal Financially

1. How much does your goal cost? You need to set that number as your starting point.
2. How much do you currently have? Look at your own bank account and net worth, meaning how much debt are you in and how much cash do you have in your accounts.
3. Prioritize your expenses. If you have credit cards to pay off or bills or any type of debt, it’s best to get those out of the way first before bringing on either further debt or a new expense.
4. Gather up current expenses. Make sure you know how much you need to spend each week, month or year and see where you have money left over for emergency expenses and left over for your goals.
5. Live within your means. If you have nothing left over from your income, then you are living out of your means, that means you’ll have to stop spending money somewhere and figure out how you can put money away.
6. Create a separate bank account for your goal. With the ease of online banking, you can transfer funds into a separate savings account with interest (shop around for the best rates), and put money into that account and don’t touch it until you have enough money for your goal.
7. Can you finance your goal? If you are looking into buying a car or a house, then you can. Make sure your credit is doing well before you even start getting quotes for financing, it will make it much easier for you.

Personal Recommendations 

Gathering your net worth isn’t as easy as it seems. Putting all your bills, debts and cash into one place can be tricky to do on your own. Well there’s great news, Mint.com is an absolutely free website that you can manage your finances on. With their weekly budget reports and their credit / banking analysis, they are always providing recommendations on which credit cards are a better fit for you with lower interest rates and better rewards. They also help you set budgets and set alerts when you are close to your budgets. Mint is a great place to start working on setting your personal financial goal. Check them out and give it a try, you’ll really enjoy it. www.mint.com.

It isn’t easy knowing what you want out of life and I’m here to help you once you’ve made that decision. If you’d like, take it from someone who really has a strong understanding of getting what you want out of life. Check this out Goals!: How to Get Everything You Want — Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible. This book highlights and goes way in-depth of how to take control of your life and get the things you want out of it!