Are you trying to find a good guide that will teach you how to set and achieve financial goals, along with financial goals examples? Are you finding articles that sound complicated and intimidating? You’re in luck, having reached a 6-figure net worth by the age of 25, I am sharing with you what I’ve learned along the way.
Tackling your personal finances can be scary, at least I know I have felt intimidated looking at it all. Financial goal setting can be that piece that will bring confidence and excitement into the process for you. Thus I’m excited to provide this guide and financial goals examples for you.
The truth is, without setting goals and making plans to achieve them, it’s much less likely that you’ll achieve the wealth and stability that you desire – I mean don’t we all? Without getting serious about what you want and how to get there, you’ll likely remain in the same patterns that you’re in today. But let’s explore the goal setting process with examples together!
After going through this article, you’re going to feel so much more confident in what you need to do to set financial goals, including short term financial goals and long. You’ll have financial goals examples to refer back to. You are going to be better equipped to make smart financial goals with smart financial goals examples as well.
So let’s go ahead and get started.
This post is all about How to Set and Achieve Financial Goals, including financial goals examples.
How to Set and Achieve Financial Goals
Envision Your Future, both long- and short-term
Take a minute to really contemplate what your dream future looks like. Where are you? Who are you with? What do your days look like, what are you doing? What experiences are you having?
These types of exercise are KEY in understanding your values, dreams, and desires. The more you envision it, the more energy you are likely to put in to get there. And by the way, we aren’t talking small dreams, we are talking BIG dreams. Don’t sell yourself short.
If you are feeling particularly motivated, write down a description of this vision. Consider creating a vision board. Be specific and clear with yourself. If you want to be sitting in on a beach in Hawaii reading books all day every day, say that!
Do this for both your short term future and long term. Think what you want your life to look like next year, in 5 years, and in 10, etc.
Determine the Needs and Wants to Get There
Alright, so now you’ve got your visions clearly in mind. Now you need to determine what are the things you need or want in order to make those dreams come true.
Do you need to have a baby in order to have your dream of being the ultimate soccer mom come true? Yeah that’s a good start.
Do you need a car in order to get to the thrift store and enjoy eBay reselling full-time? maybe that’s a need or a want.
You get it. Determine the things that will get you there. These can be tangible or intangible. Things like weight loss, happiness, and education are less tangible. On the other hand, a gym membership, therapy sessions, and college tuition are definitely more tangible.
Again, write these down! Get yourself a little chart going!
Create SMART Goals and Write Them Down
Alright, so now you’ve determined your vision for the future, the things you need/want to get there. Now you need to set goals to obtain those needs and desires that will change your life to the dream you have in mind. (keep in mind, THESE CAN ALWAYS CHANGE! and likely they will, but it’s better to act now rather than wait.)
Alright, how do you actually set goals?
The first thing you need to do is answer a few questions (you may remember these from elementary school): Who? What? Where? When? Why? These will help you to craft the perfect SMART goal. (don’t worry I’ll tell you what SMART stands for, one sec.)
I like to give examples clearly, so let’s go for it.
Let’s say you have the dream of being a college graduate. You determined that in order to get there you need to save $10,000 for tuition in order to pay for college this year. This is your objective.
Now let’s create a goal for graduating from college.
- Who? You
- What? Save $10,000
- Where? Savings account
- When? In exactly 1 year from now
- Why? So that I can pay for college and become a college graduate
Ok! So now you know what you’re looking at. Now let’s talk about SMART goals, and how going through this exercise will help you set one.
What are SMART Goals?
SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. Going through the exercise above will help you to determine a few of these.
Your goal is specific because you know all the details of surrounding your goal. Measurable because you know YES you saved the total amount or NO you didn’t. Achievable because you have a job and you are able to do it. Realistic because you are giving yourself the right about of time and have the willpower to get you there. And finally time-bound because you gave yourself the 1 year to accomplish.
Ok you probably didn’t need that hand-holding explanation, but you got it anyways! lol
Alright, so now you’ve done these two things and you’ve checked the boxes, now you NEED to write down your goal for yourself. I tend to like to write it in a sentence format, but you do whatever you want.
Here is how I’d write down this goal: “I will save $10,000 on or before April 30, 2024.”
Tah-dah!
Here is a good resource on the details of SMART goals.
Create a Plan to Get There
Notice that of the list above, I didn’t mention to ask yourself HOW. That was intentional. That’s because the next step in the process is to create your plan, to answer the question HOW will I achieve this goal?
There are lots of ways to plan this out, but drilling down to the exact steps you need to take will help you get there.
Break your goal down into chunks. My mom used to say “how do you eat an elephant?” One bite at a time mom. Same principle applies here.
If you need to save $10,000 in 12 months, that means you need to save $833.33 each month. If you prefer you can implement milestones that are further apart or closer together. I like to have mine in 3-month chunks, so that would be $2,500 every 3 months.
After you create your milestones, determine where the money will come from. (or if you’re thinking weight loss, what will cause the pounds to decrease? etc.)
Do you need to get a job, increase your wages, come up with a side hustle, etc. Get that in your plan. Maybe you already make enough money, you just need to ensure it’s actually going into savings instead of towards random unnecessary purchases.
Ok, be sure to write this all down too! Now you should have a plan of action to get you there.
Integrate Your Goals and Plans into your Budget
Something that will help you remain accountable to your plans to achieve your financial goals is to include the milestone amounts in your budget each month. This will ensure you are setting this money aside regularly.
One other thing you can try doing is paying for your goals FIRST. Before you pay for anything else, set that money aside, transfer it to savings, whatever you need to do, but do it first.
Check in Regularly
This one is fairly straight forward, but it’ll help you SO much to check in with your goals and how you are acting on your plan regularly. Create a habit where each week/month/year you are evaluating.
Determine any changes that need to be made in order to achieve your goals.
Reward Your Successes
You have done an amazing job and have successfully achieved your goal, now it’s time to reward yourself!!! So go pay that tuition and graduate! Do something that will make the effort worthwhile!
This will reinforce the positive experience of achieving your goal and make it more likely for you to continue this process over and over!
Long and Short Term Financial Goals Examples
Long Term Financial Goals examples
There are so many long term financial goals, but let’s just go through a few that you could consider:
- have over $1 Million net worth by the age of 40
- max out my Roth IRA and 401K every year possible
- own 30 single-family homes in my investment portfolio in 30 years
- save $30,000 for each child’s education by the time they are 18 years old
Short Term Financial Goals examples
Again, use these to inspire you. There are endless examples of short term financial goals examples, but you can use these to get inspired:
- create a zero-based budget by the end of the month
- save $20,000 for a Ford truck to buy in 6 months
- contribute $2,500 to my Roth IRA by the end of April
- earn $10,000 in side-hustle income by the end of this year
Setting goals and making actionable plans to achieve them will lead you closer and closer to the life you desire. Checking in with yourself regularly will allow you to stay close to those dreams.