Tips on Reaching Your Financial Goals This Year

by Dhenn Espiritu

“Wel­come aboard, 2018!”
“2018, please be good.”
“Sana suw­er­ti­hin ako ngay­ong taon.”
“This year, sana mag­ka-love life na ako.”
“This year, mag-iipon na tala­ga ako.”
“This year mag-da-diet na tala­ga ako.”

You can hear all these hope­ful say­ings when­ev­er a new year comes. A new year that some­how builds our once bro­ken hopes and dreams.

And then we did our buck­et list, trav­el goals, fit­ness goals, and finan­cial goals.

But then, real­i­ty kicks in. Accord­ing to a sur­vey made in the U.S, all the new year’s res­o­lu­tions end­ed in Jan­u­ary.

Moti­vat­ed ka sa una, pero hin­di mo pala kayang mag-com­mit.

Just a dis­claimer, I’m not a finan­cial expert or guru. I was “once” a finan­cial advi­sor but don’t ask me for any specifics, and in these finan­cial blog series, I will talk only about my expe­ri­ences, what I also learned from the gurus, and also what I am doing.

And before we are going deep­er, let me start this series on how to reach your finan­cial goals this year.

“Ang hirap mag­ing adult! Sana estudyante na lang ulit ako!” I once heard this from a young pro­fes­sion­al who mum­bled because of his finan­cial respon­si­bil­i­ties.

Some veered away when his friends talked about mon­ey. That’s one way of escap­ing from real­i­ty. And a lot of Fil­ipinos doesn’t want to talk about it as it is a “taboo” top­ic.

While in some Chi­nese fam­i­lies, they often talk about it. Where to do busi­ness, where they will put their hard-earned mon­ey, etc.

Do you want to reach your finan­cial goals this year? Here are some tips;

1. Set a goal first! Be spe­cif­ic.

Zig Ziglar, a moti­va­tion­al speak­er said, “If you aim at noth­ing, you will hit it every time.”

Buy a jour­nal note­book or plan­ner and write down your finan­cial goals there. For exam­ple:

“This 2018, my aim is to achieve 100k pesos worth of sav­ings and invest­ments.”

Now I know you will ask “how”, but just leave your goal writ­ten there.

2. Don’t Announce it.

If you want to suc­ceed, don’t announce it.  There’s a study that peo­ple who announced their goals to the pub­lic often accom­plish less.

Yes­ter­day, I post­ed some things I’ve accom­plished last year and what I want­ed to “look for­ward” this year on my Face­book account. It was not a goal but rather list of things I’m look­ing for­ward.

3. Com­mit your­self to it.

Now here’s the hard­est part. Wag mo iwanan sa ere yung goals mo kat­u­lad ng ginawa mo sa ex mo.

Here’s how I com­mit myself to my goals:

• Divide your spe­cif­ic goals to 12 months.

For exam­ple, my goal this year is to save a hun­dred thou­sand pesos. So my month­ly goal is to save 8,333 pesos per month. Write it down:

“This month I will save 8,333 pesos. I will deposit or invest that amount before spend­ing.”

Again the rule should be: Expens­es = Income — Sav­ings

• What are my action plans?

Here comes anoth­er chal­lenge. What actions should I take to achieve this goal? Be thrifty, spend less, find anoth­er income stream, buy an invest­ment prod­uct, open a.bank account, that is your call.

For instance, buy­ing invest­ment instru­ments or prod­ucts will help you a lot in build­ing the habit of sav­ing. But just make sure it is a legal com­pa­ny.

Stay away from Ponzi schemes, mul­ti-lev­el mar­ket­ing that promis­es high returns when you recruit peo­ple. If it is good to be true, then it is not good, beware!

4. Edu­cate your­self.

You are here because you want to know more. Con­grat­u­la­tions! Don’t stop, buy books that will help you achieve your goals.

It was 5 years ago when I jumped-off from being a hard-core gamer to a read­er. Up to this day, I owned and read more than 200 books and I love it!

I also attend­ed a lot of sem­i­nars makes me eli­gi­ble to be called “sem­i­nar­ista”. Don’t be afraid to spend a lot on edu­ca­tion. Wis­dom is proven the most expen­sive. It has no guar­an­teed returns, but it can make you wise and rich.

Cur­rent­ly, I’m now explor­ing and study­ing in the pos­si­bil­i­ty of invest­ing on cryp­tocur­ren­cies like Bit­coin, Ether, etc. Wel­come to the dig­i­tal era of cur­ren­cy!

If you con­stant­ly ask “how”, then prob­a­bly like me, you need to study more. Again, do not spend either invest on some­thing you do not know.

5. Com­mit your plans to God.

Do you want to be suc­cess­ful? then com­mit your goals to God. The Bible says in Proverbs 16:3 – “Com­mit to the LORD what­ev­er you do, and your plans will suc­ceed.”

If He pros­pers it then it is not against His will. And blessed are the peo­ple who com­mit their ways to God.

So can we please stop telling 2018 to be good to us? Because 2018 will nev­er be good to us if we don’t start it from our­selves.