Writing Down Your Financial Goals

J.D. over at Get Rich Slowly wrote an interesting piece about setting up financial goals. In it he covers long, intermediate, and short term goals. He quotes:

Many people make poor financial decisions because they don’t have long-term personal goals. If you don’t understand that buying a new cell phone or playing a game of poker takes money from a larger goal — a new home, a new car, a vacation to Europe — then there’s no incentive not to use the money for whatever seems fun at the moment.

Your goals do not need to be based on rocket science. You don’t have to write brilliant prose when witting your goals down. Just think about the things that you want to achieve, in the short-term, the medium-term, and the long-term and figure out the steps you need to take to get there. If you don’t know, find out who to ask (maybe someone who has achieved a goal you want to achieve), and ask them. Most importantly, try to make your goals S.M.A.R.T:

S pecific
M easurable
A ttainable
R ealistic
T imley

Example: I will have $2 million in dividend-paying investments by June 30, 2036 by investing 16% of my gross income in dividend-paying investments on a monthly basis.

Thanks to Despair.com

Spend some time today and figure out what your short, medium, and long term financial goals are and set a plan in place to get there. There are many examples out there of people who have done it.

• Keeping Investing Simple: Only 2 Real Reasons Why We Invest
• Keeping and Eye on My Dividend Portfolio Goals
• Creating a Goal Tracking Chart in Excel
• The Vanguard Principles – An Excellent Investor’s Resource
• Investment Risk Profiles