What does your financial future look like? Early Retirement? Working Forever?

Let’s start talking about money and finances. I’ll move through different aspects of handling money, from budgeting and saving to retirement and investment accounts, through a series of posts. Everyone should have financial goals, and no, they shouldn’t be the same for everyone. Everyone is different. Everyone spends money differently. Everyone values different things differently. Everyone has different personal goals (long and short term) and therefore different financial goals (long and short term). We’ll come back to goals briefly in a bit, but let’s get started.

I know everyone is at a different level financially, whether it be income level or comfort with handling finances. In order to be successful financially you need to have a foundation. The foundation for personal financial success starts with being able to answer the following questions:

1. How much money do I make? (Take home pay after taxes & retirement contributions)
2. How much do I owe? Or how much debt do I have? (Type, amount owed, monthly payment, and payoff date). This includes credit cards, car loans, student loans, and mortgages.
3. Where does my money go? Do you have a way to track where you spend your money? It will be difficult to set savings goals if you don’t know how much you spend and what you spend it on.
4. Where is your money? (Checking accounts, savings accounts, CDs, bonds, investment accounts, retirement accounts)
   Once you can answer these questions, you can move forward. If you’re already there, great. You’ll be ready for the next post.

I want to revisit goals briefly before ending this post. Start thinking of what goals you have financially, long and short term. It could be as simple as saving a couple hundred dollars for a new computer or a savings goal for your retirement accounts by 2028 (10 years from now). It is just to get you started thinking in that direction. Once we cover the foundation for your finances, I’ll revisit goals and some of the ways to work towards achieving them. If you have any questions, post them below or PM me and I’ll answer as best I can.