The more steps you make towards Financial Excellence, the more important it becomes to build in some time on a regular basis to check how you are doing and start looking at longer term goals and plans.
Today’s task is to set a regular appointment with yourself, during which you can dedicate some time to updating the state of your finances. Ideally you would find a set moment a week that you can nearly always dedicate to this new habit, such as every Sunday evening, Saturday morning or Wednesday at 12:00. In this way you are less likely to forget and more likely to stick to this new routine.
I admit that this step should have probably been way earlier on in the list, since if you share your household and finances with your partner, then discussing money matters and making sure you have the same short-term and long-term goals in mind is essential to not only achieving your financial goals but also keeping your relationship healthy and happy. At the end of the day if you are trying to save, invest or grow your capital whilst your partner is more of the “let’s spend it all now” school, you likely both wind up frustrated with each other, meaning both your financial goals and your relationship happiness will take a hit and suffer at some point.
Sad but true: finances and a lack of shared financial goals or financial compatibility are not uncommon reasons for people to end a relationship, so let’s get this sorted once and for all and make sure that you and your partner discuss your individual and joint financial beliefs and goals. You might not have exactly the same ideas about how to spend or save your money, but discussing will at least create more understanding and hopefully pave the way to an agreement that satisfies both and leaves some (financial) room for both to do your own thing.
Of course it might be that your partner is not into finances at all and is happy for you to take control of the (majority) of the money decisions and responsibilities. If that is the case, it might sound easier in the short-term to simply assume that role not inform or even consult your partner, but remember that long-term this might not be in the interest of neither your relationship nor of your finances. Continue reading “Step 55: Discuss Finances with your Partner”→
In step 18 we looked at starting a weekly finance review and what to focus on during that weekly half an hour, to ensure you stay on track for that month’s spending, bills and goals.
Today we are going to take this one step further, by starting a monthly finance review, in addition to your weekly review. Whereas the weekly review is incredibly useful to ensure you achieve your monthly goals, the monthly review helps you to achieve your longer term goals that you set out to achieve, such as becoming debt free, getting to a certain net worth or saving a specific amount of money. It is the moment to plan and look ahead a little further and to readjust your goals and spending patterns.
During most months you can probably combine every fourth weekly review with your monthly review, although for your monthly analysis you will need to set aside more time, as you are analysing the entire past month and also looking further ahead. I recommend scheduling in roughly 2 hours every month to complete this step. Continue reading “Step 25: Start a Monthly Finance Review”→
Step 18 is all about starting a new and incredibly powerful habit, one that will allow you to focus on your mission, realign your spending and savings patterns to your goals and get closer each time until little by little one day you tick off your first goal, then your second one, your third, until you realize you are able to hit your goals one after the other.
This new super habit is starting a weekly finance review, during which you will go through your goals and some of the main steps we have covered up til now, and when you work your way through the next 82 steps that are still to come, you will add some of those steps to your weekly review too. In that way you consistently hold yourself accountable for your success as you review whether you are on track (or not) for the rest of the month, and what adjustments need to be made in order to make sure you will achieve your goals for the month, and with that ultimately those much desired long-term goals.
100 Steps Mission 