In the early stages of your financial development, it’s easiest to set a few short-term financial goals. You might set a debt reduction goal of paying off your car loan. Or maybe your short-term goal is a savings goal. You might save enough cash to pay for a family vacation. These short-term goals and their successful completion are the first steps in creating a financial plan.
Ultimately, though, your financial plans should look to the long haul. Knowing what your long-term goals are will help you decide what the next step in your financial step should be. And keeping those long-term goals in mind will enable you to evaluate your different financial options each day.
Long-term goals can vary depending upon your age and status. Young, married couples might make the purchase of their own home a long-term goal. Someone mired in debt would do well to make the reduction of their debt a long-term goal. Even retirement plans can become a part of your long-term goals.
Spend some times deciding what your long-term financial goals should be. Remember that these goals shouldn’t be things that you can achieve in a year or two. Long-term goals can take many years. For instance, those retirement plans might be twenty years in the making for someone in their forties.
Once you’ve identified the long-term goals that matter to you and your family, you’ll find that making short-term financial decisions will become much easier. If you’re tempted to buy a new car, even though the car you currently own runs perfectly fine, stop and think about what that purchase will mean to your goals. Will it set them back? Do you want that new car badly enough to postpone your long-term goals? Thinking through your purchases in this manner will make it easy to keep your goals at the forefront of your mind.
Developing a working set of long-term goals is a sign of real financial maturity. Once you have these goals, however, don’t be afraid to change them over time. If your plans change, you may need to change your goals to match them. However your plans may change, you will find that blazing your own financial path becomes much easier if you have some goals to act as a map.
Related Posts
- Living the Frugal Life with an Un-Frugal Spouse
- Monday Morning Roundup - Simplify Your Finances, A Cash Versus A Credit Purchase, and A Debt Reduction Journey
- 5 Wealth Building Tips for Financial Freedom There are a lot of different things that are involved...
- All About Loans: An Essential Guideline by Paul Stanner In the status quo, the economic situation...
6 responses so far ↓
1 Will // May 9, 2008 at 7:06 am
Great post. It can be overwhelming to jump head first into long term planning. Instead, setting short term goals and achieving them gives the know how and builds the necessary confidence to tackle long term goals.
I recently wrote a post titled “
Financial Planning in Six Simple Steps“. I think it would be a great complement to this article.
2 Frugal One // May 10, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Hi, just came across your blog today and was excited to find it! I’m always on the lookout for good frugal/money saving blogs, and think it’s great that this is a husband and wife blog! How cool is that!
My husband also writes a blog about saving money and living the frugal life. It’s called Engineer a Debt Free Life at http://engineeradebtfreelife.blogspot.com/ – feel free to check it out!
3 Pat // May 12, 2008 at 10:36 am
Very good advice! If you don’t have specific goals in mind, how are you going to know when you’ve met them?
4 Expanding Your Financial Horizons — P2P No Bank // Apr 2, 2009 at 9:33 pm
[...] Keeping Your Eye on the Prize In the early stages of your financial development, it’s easiest to set a few short-term financial goals. You might set a debt reduction goal of paying off your car loan. Or maybe your short-term goal is a savings goal. You might save enough cash to pay for a family vacation……. Categories:, 300k, Financial Security, Long Term, closing costs, expanding your horizons, fantasies, financial dreams, financial future, financial goals, financial independence, financial rewards, goal, little bit, money, new furniture, new ways, next five years, personal finance, pie in the sky, small changes, wealth [...]
5 Getting Motivated to Organize Your Finances — P2P No Bank // May 31, 2009 at 12:59 pm
[...] Keeping Your Eye on the Prize In the early stages of your financial development, it’s easiest to set a few short-term financial goals. You might set a debt reduction goal of paying off your car loan. Or maybe your short-term goal is a savings goal. You might save enough cash to pay for a family vacation……. [...]
6 Do You Go For the Gold Financially? — P2P No Bank // Jun 15, 2009 at 6:37 am
[...] Keeping Your Eye on the Prize In the early stages of your financial development, it’s easiest to set a few short-term financial goals. You might set a debt reduction goal of paying off your car loan. Or maybe your short-term goal is a savings goal. You might save enough cash to pay for a family vacation……. [...]
Leave a Comment