Not Made Of Money

Savings goals can some of the hardest goals to keep. There are always other things vying for your attention and money. As little things come up, you set your goal aside planning to resume your progress towards it soon. Before long, months have gone by and your progress has completely stalled. Does this sound familiar? How can you keep this scenario from repeating itself over and over again?

The first key to setting and keeping your savings goals is to set realistic goals. Maybe you have a goal of saving up $1,000. You might set a goal to fund your savings within ten months. Contributing $100 each month sounds totally reasonable on your $2,000 per month income.

On the other hand, setting a goal to save $1,000,000 probably isn’t going to happen, at least not any time soon. Setting a goal that you can’t achieve will just leave you feeling hopeless and powerless. You’ll be discouraged from the very beginning if you know you won’t actually reach your goal. Be sure that the goals you choose are truly attainable.

Another key to reaching your goals is to set goals that are easily measured. If your goal is to “save money” you may find yourself mired down in the ambiguity of your goal. Will you just save some money for an undetermined amount of time? A goal has to be clearly defined. Set a savings amount you’d like to reach and an estimated time line needed to reach it.

Finally, you have to keep yourself inspired as you work towards meeting your savings goals. Make a chart that shows your progress or drop a marble into a jar to mark you growing savings account. When we were saving for a family vacation, the kids drew a picture of one of their favorite cartoon characters. Then, as we got closer to our savings goal, the kids colored in different parts of the picture. When the picture was fully-colored, it was time to go on vacation.

You can even arrange small rewards as you reach milestones on the path to large goals. When you save your first $500, perhaps you’ll treat your family to an afternoon at the movie theatre. Do whatever you need to do to keep yourself excited about your progress.

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