How can I set effective financial goals?
Let's say that one of your life zones is a family. You want to spend more quality time with your family. One of the things you want to accomplish is to take them to Disney World. Maybe you want to drive cross country with them, spend a whole lot of time – not sure how much quality time that is, but let's just say it is – quality time with the family driving to Disney World. The question is, "How can we make that more of a specific financial goal?" Well, what's it going to cost to rent an RV? What will it cost you to take time off from work? What will it cost you to get into Disney World, and to pay the way for all the rides and the food? All of these things have a dollar sign associated with them. They all cost money. For each of those areas - the RV, the admission tickets, the food, the other entertainment - figure out how much that might cost. Once you have that total dollar amount - let's say it's two thousand dollars - figure out how much time you have until you want to achieve that financial goal, and then you can start to figure it out: "If I want to do this in a year, I should start saving a couple of hundred dollars every single month from my paycheck. If I do that, then when the next summer rolls around, we'll have enough money in the account so that we can take the kids to Disney World."
