How Setting Goals For Yourself Creates Long Term Achievement

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Setting Goals For Your Personal Finances

Review Your Spending

In order to understand where to go with setting up your goals, you really do need to know where are now. Learn the patterns of your life! They are there and the exercise of going through a review might shock you.

It may be mystifying where your time and money go, particularly if you don’t track your expenses regularly. This is especially true in a family where knowing everything everyone is doing all the time is a complete disaster. Yes, we fit that category and am quite guilty of turning the other cheek but not in that good way.

So how do you know what was spent, especially if you didn’t track it all year to begin with? Download a year of transactions from your bank and credit cards into a csv file, spreadsheet, or any system you are familiar with to look at your data. Make income, expense, and bill categories. Separate them by month and see how it all looks. If you are spending more than you make, at least now you can address where potential savings might exist.

Identify Savings Opportunities

Here are a few tips that might help you get started with ways to save. If you have more, leave them in the comments and we may share them via our social media.

The other big one was Amazon Prime. The family shares a plan and we can share our wish lists for birthdays or holidays as an added bonus. As the kids have grown into college life, they have also added their payment details so they can manage their own purchases. That is one thing I appreciate not having on my plate these days!

You’ve Got To Eat, Right? Food Choices Impact Both Finances and Wellness

Eating out versus eating in is huge for us! Typically, we have worked hard to reduce the restaurant and fast food categories. We found that by investing in the grocery side of the equation, we saw double savings in the dining out budget. A nice benefit of this approach is a healthier lifestyle since you can control salt, fats and especially portions.

As a Starbucks self-diagnosed addict, I adopted a virtual envelope approach. By loading the Starbucks app once a month only, achieving a budget goal is much more straight forward. Once it’s used up, that’s it. I use my coffee maker at home no matter what.

Smart Healthcare Planning Saves Money

Usually healthcare isn’t a big investment (grateful for our health insurance) but there are surprises you can avoid. Those “first-fill” prescriptions can be pricey. Ours was as much as $75 per rx per person. In a family, that can be hundreds of dollars right when those Christmas credit card bills start coming due. The solution? Fill them a little early in late December or stagger the prescription refills if you can. It helps spread the cashflow over a longer period of time. Don’t endanger your health to do it though!

Dental and ophthalmology are another area to save. Most insurance plans have regular check-ups and a certain amount of benefit each year. By making sure you take advantage of any benefit this year, you may save yourself an added expense next year. This probably needs an example so here goes. I had a new eye prescription early in the year and got my new glasses. Well, that summer I lost said pair of glasses and had to pay in full for the next pair. If I had gone just a tad earlier, in December instead of January. Those lost summer spectacles would have been free as part of my annual benefit.

• I’ve tried to use the envelope system, honestly! But who uses cash these days? This app fits the realities of day to day personal finance. It’s NOT an accounting package masquerading as a budgeting tool. YNAB’s mindset takes adjustment, but my favorite part is – it won’t let you spend money that you don’t have. Well, technically it can’t reach out and prevent you from swiping that credit card, but it will give you angry red messages and demand that you cover that overspending with money from another category if you proceed to swipe.YNAB has an amazing collection of video tutorials, blog posts, user forums, and interactive video workshops readily available to help. I’ve found their customer service to be superb.
• YNAB will help you get your credit cards under control. I’m serious. If you have even the tiniest ounce of self-control this program can help you. It knows when you made a purchase with your credit card (for example, you bought groceries with your credit card so you can earn cashback). When you import or manually enter that purchase, YNAB takes money from the grocery category and automatically sets it aside for you to use when you make your credit card payment. No more worrying about if you have enough money to make the payment.

Setting Goals For Your Wellness

Groceries

Next to rent or car payments, groceries can take a huge chunk out of any budget. Once we identified a proper budget for the groceries, we were able to actually save from week to week. Those small weekly savings added up over the course of the year. Setting goals in this area was incredibly important as it touched on budget, health and productivity if managed properly.

• What do you need versus what do you want? For one contributor, alcohol is an added expense that is NOT essential and the change in mindset from a “need” category (Groceries) to a “want” category (Entertainment) made it easier to prioritize. For you, it may be sodas, juices, prepared smoothies, energy drinks or protein shakes and that’s just the drinks! Ask yourself, which items do you need and which can you let go?
• Another contributor noted their grocery bill is fairly consistent but it could be better. They tended to purchase items they didn’t need: trash bags, cleaning supplies, shampoo or soap. Why? They didn’t remember to check those things before heading to the store, panicked and bought that kitchen sponge, just in case. The new approach? A master list with all the basic needs and the price! After a few months using the list, they cut out at least ten percent from the budget and experience the added bonus of properly stocking the shelves.

• I HATE meal planning. Seriously, my brain isn’t capable of thinking that far ahead. So I shop for 2-3 days at a time. I do sort of mini-meal plan for those days, but somehow it’s not as overwhelming to do one or two days worth of meals as opposed to a whole week. I also find myself buying way more “just in case I need it” items the longer I’m trying to avoid coming back to the store.
• On the flip side, without meal planning, our family would be forced to survive on proteins. Quite literally, there would be no rice and not a vegetable in sight! Without a plan, the cheese or turkey for lunches would run out and we’d be back out to the store. If you have kids, knowing how much to purchase of anything is always a challenge. So while we don’t enjoy the process of planning, at least we won’t starve. That master list is our lifeline in more ways than one.

Unexpected Challenges and Health Benefits From Meal Plans And Grocery Bill Management

If you find you can manage your finances and the groceries or meal plan that works for you, you may see some unexpected results.

• With snackers in the house, shopping every few days may have an unexpected result. If packages of processed crap are in the pantry, they will get eaten. Hunger and nutrition have nothing to do with it. Buy 3, 5 or 10 snack items and they will get eaten in the exact same amount of time. So I buy 3. Nobody complains, and in case you were wondering – everyone in my family is a healthy weight. I am not starving them.
• Eating in is far healthier than fast food, even the so-called healthy options. So, while I would love to say it is a choice whether to eat in or out, the past few years I was not able to eat out at all because of a health condition. That situation has since been resolved but there was a significant lesson learned. Eating in and controlling the fat and salt in foods led to a massive healing process. I feel so much better! There are far fewer cravings, and if I do eat out on occasion, I don’t “pay the price” the next day.

Setting Goals For Your Health

For me, making decisions and taking the necessary steps to be healthier was quite a gradual process. To be perfectly fair, I avoided the doctor’s office for years. There were always excuses, whether I was just too busy or “I felt fine” or even the fear of needles.

As a result, my first step toward my own health goals actually began with making that first appointment with my primary care physician. Assessing my health and making appointments for the annual screenings came next. At each step of the process, my goal was not have an excuse to delay a routine visit. I didn’t start with lose ten pounds or remove sugar from diet. It was all about tackling the most basic of annual tasks without objections. I kept it simple. With all of the assessments done, I now have achievable goals defined and am now accustomed to those regular check ups, tests, etc..

What are your health related challenges? If it’s eat more veggies, exercise more, reduce stress, whatever it may be, just START SMALL and KEEP GOING. Setting goals does not have to be overly complicated. In fact, the simpler the better!

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