Someone once said “Life is based on value not on status or tears; whatever you give out is what you have”. This edition will be talking about Setting Financial Goals. I’m sure most of us had set New Year Goals at the beginning of this year of the things we want to achieve before the end of this year. Why do we set these goals? To serve as a guide, reminder and a check on us in order not to deviate from the actual goal but fulfill them. Some of us went on to put a time frame/limit to our goals so as to ensure definiteness. The same should apply to our financial lives. We should also set goals financially. Beyond setting goals financially, our goals should be definite within a time frame/limit. Our financial goals should have a clear and definite amount and time. Our financial goals can be short term or long term. Examples of short term goals are:
- By the end of this year, I want to have saved this amount of money
- By the end of this year, I want to have invested a particular amount of money and have a particular amount to returns etc.
Examples of long term goals include
- In ten years from now, I want to have a financial net asset of N10 billion
- In ten years from now, I want to have given out N100 million to help people etc.
An important factor to also consider is that these goals should be written out and placed where they can easily be seen time from time; it’s more real that way.
In a nutshell, our financial goals should be Specific, Measurable (from time to time, we should be able to measure how far we have gone in achieving these goals), Achievable and Timely.
In case you have not written out goals especially for this year, it’s not too late to write out one and follow it up for the remaining five months of this year.
Finally, we want to really appreciate all our readers for all encouraging comments and efforts. It really helps! Also, feel free to drop your quotes and articles on financial literacy for publication.
For contributions to the blog, you can contact me on: pelumi2oluwagbemi@yahoo.com.
Originally posted on www.thefinancialliterate.wordpress.com (A previous version of The Financial Literate)
