How to Determine Your Financial Goals

Table of Contents
Chapter 1: How to Determine Your Financial Goals
Chapter 2: Setting Priorities to Reach Your Financial Goals
Chapter 3: Short Term Goals vs. Long Term Goals
Chapter 4: Focus on Feasible Financial Planning Goals
Chapter 5: Review Your Financial Goals Periodically
Chapter 6: Tracking Your Financial Planning Progress

Whether it is business, life or leisure, planning is the key to successfully achieve what you set out to do. Even activities as simple as going out to watch a movie become simpler with planning. Of course, there are things that you simply cannot plan for. But your financial future is definitely not one of them.

Your future finances will hugely influence how comfortable, prosperous or healthy you are going to be in the coming years. Being financially independent or having the funds to meet large expenses later in life is the key to ensuring that your future is secure. Planning plays a critical role in making sure that you are financially independent and have a secure future.

When we talk about planning, what exactly does it mean? Are we talking about setting aside money every month? Or is it buying a house? Putting aside money into retirement funds?

Planning encompasses all of this but it does so by means of helping you identify your financial goals. After all, it is far easier to work towards specific, quantifiable financial goals rather than saving towards a vague goal of a ‘comfortable’ or ‘happy’ future.

When it comes to financial goals, we talk about ‘developing’ rather than ‘planning’ them. This is because financial goals evolve over time such that a financial plan that you make at the beginning of your career may need to be tweaked as you progress in life.

With time, changes will occur that materially affect your lifestyle, the way you think, what you consider important, the state of your health etc. These changes, in turn, affect your goals in life.

Next Chapter: Setting Priorities to Reach Your Financial Goals