When creating a financial plan for yourself or for you and your family it is important that you answer a few questions. I recommend that you write down these answers on a piece of paper or word document so you can refer to them from time to time. Question 1: What do I want out of life?
What do you want out of life? Seriously…what sort of lifestyle are you seeking? It doesn’t matter where you are right now on this grand journey we call life, but where do you wish to go? What destination do you have for yourself? What sort of speech do you want your best friend to give at your funeral?
While you’re mulling over these questions and coming up with answers, it is only fair that you understand a wee bit about the people who normally ask me for financial coaching.
Most of the people who attend my seminars have the following demographics:
- $15,000 in credit card debt
- a mortgage of $186,000 to $225,000 (California & New York City clients are much higher)
- students loans
- at least one car payment (Over 20% have two car payments or a boat payment)
- loans to family
- medical bills not paid by insurance
- have $50 or less in a savings account
- are one paycheck away from bankruptcy
- can not tell me the exact amount of their take-home pay
Question 2: What are my goals?
When was the last time you wrote out your goals? Since you now know what you want out of life from answering Question 1, now write out your 20 year, 10 year, 5 year and this year’s goals.
Question 3: What was my dream?
What was the dream I had when I was 8-12 years old? Face it, most of us had our dreams squelched when we were young. This is the time to resurrect those dreams and try to find a way to achieve them. Even if they have NOTHING to do with your current employment. Examples of clients whose jobs were different from their dreams:
- A pathologist who wanted to write historical fiction for children
- A forest ranger who wanted to work for the FBI as an analyst
- The 58-year old homemaker who wanted to dance ballet (she did end up taking lessons!)
- The dot com engineer who wanted to live off-grid in Colorado
What are the dreams you gave up on? Did someone tell you that you could never achieve your dream so why bother? Now is the time to bring those dreams back and start working on them. They will guide you on what will make your life worth living and give you the motivation to stick to your Financial Plan.
