Tiffany Raiford
Few things about personal finance or budgeting seem at all exciting, and it’s just par for the course. The vast majority of people are not at all interested in the topic, they don’t discuss it frequently and the thought of balancing their bank accounts, overlooking their budgets and doing things of that nature seems completely boring. That’s why so many people put off doing things like that, which is just a massive setback on the road to financial success. It’s not doing anyone any favors to put their financial goals on the backburner because they’re not exciting. For example, who wants to think about an emergency fund for things that happen out of the blue like replacing all your tires at once or something of that nature? No one; because that is not even remotely close to exciting in any way. However, if you want to discuss saving for your dream vacation, I’m willing to bet you might perk up just a little on that one. So what do you to do make your financial goals a bit more exciting? Well, you make them exciting. In fact, you make them attainable and exciting, and we have some tips that will help you do just that.
Make Small Goals
The best way to make financial goals more attainable is to make them small and do-able. When you do this, you automatically set yourself up for success in a way that you will understand the first time you meet a goal. For example, if you decide that you’re going to make your first goal attainable by going through your house and selling things you no longer want or need, you can make some serious cash. Not only that, you get the added side benefit of being able to clean and purge some clutter from around the house that’s typically not conducive to your sense of control and organization. You can make your goal getting rid of clutter and unwanted items so that you can then go ahead and use that cash to pay off a debt, start an emergency fund or put it into savings – what you do with it is your small goal.
Make Big Goals
To make small goals, however, you have to have big goals. For example, if your small goal is to pay off one credit card in 3 months, your big goal is probably to live debt-free and pay off all your debts. That’s a good big goal to have. Without big goals, your small goals are relatively pointless, which means you’ll need to go ahead and make some big goals, too. Before you get all, “Well, that doesn’t sound like fun,” on me, go ahead and understand that we’re about to discuss how you can make some fun goals, too.
Make Exciting Goals
Now that you know you need big goals and exciting goals, you have to make goals that you can attain. Here are our suggestions for making exciting goals. For one, you should always make your first financial goal to pay off your debts. You should then make a financial goal to have an emergency funds account. You should then make a financial goal to have a general savings account. You should then make some fun goals. For example, what if one big goal is to take that beautiful European vacation you’ve always wanted to take as soon as you get your debts paid? This is going to make you more excited about paying debts and making your goals more attainable.
Why? Because if you know that the faster you pay off your debts, the faster you can create a savings account that will allow you to take that vacation, the more you’re going to want to save and pay off those debts. For example, if you have $15,000 in debt you want to pay off, why not give yourself a year or two (depending on your income) to do it, make small goals such as paying off one card every quarter or whatever you can afford to do. Each time you pay off a card, you use the money you were allotting to that payment to add to the payment of the next card of your list. Then keep going until you’re completely paid off and then use the money you were applying to your debts to put aside for two or three months until you can afford to take that beautiful vacation in cash. You’ve just set and reached and accomplished several goals, some of them more necessary than fun, and one that’s really fun.
Meet One Goal at a Time
When you meet a goal, you are more likely to meet another. When you take it upon yourself to meet one small goal at a time, you feel this rush of excitement that will have you looking forward to feeling it again with your second met goal. That’s why you make one small goal at a time. Our suggestion to you is to do this; if you are trying to pay off debts, go ahead and put as much toward one card as you can while still paying off your other cards using the minimum payment. This allows you to pay as much to one as possible to pay it off faster, and then take that and apply it to the next card on your list. This is going to allow you to pay off your cards faster and faster as you get to apply more and more to each payment. It’s going to help you reach your goals a lot faster.
Use Challenges
How about making some challenges to make things a bit more interesting along your savings journey? For example, why not say you’re going to spend absolutely nothing for one week (except gas if you have to do that for work)? You can go ahead and buy absolutely nothing and learn to live with what you already have so that you can spend that extra money to meet a goal. And then challenge yourself to do the same thing for two weeks. Or then challenge yourself to buy nothing buy gas for a month while not spending anything else other than a predetermined dollar amount on food and groceries that are necessities? It’s not always fun, but it’s going to make things more attainable.
Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images
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