Now is a great time to use wisdom as you began to celebrate your Christmas holiday. Carving out time to sit down with your family to reflect on events over the past 12 months will give you clear direction for the coming year. It is essential to keep things simple and create new memories; that are literally priceless. Evaluate your spending habits, look for sink holes that may have swallowed up your money that wasn’t useful in building wealth. Avoid pointing the finger during the time of reflection. Tempers can easily flare up especially if you or your family member reveal a certain purchase made during the year that had not been agreed upon. Dwelling on the past does not resolve your mistakes or enhance your growth level.
Use those areas as a tool to increase your wealth in the coming year. For example, make a list of where you spent the most money (groceries, utilities, gas, traveling, dining out, cell phones, payday loans, car title loans, lending to family/friends). List the debts that you were able to eliminate. If there aren’t any, why? What does your emergency fund look like? How are you doing with the 52 week money challenge? What tools have you used to gain the knowledge needed for growth in your finances (reading articles, books, attending financial workshops for continued education)? What does your retirement plan look like? What does your strategy look like for eliminating your student loan debt? Whatever your list looks like, write the various categories down.
In contrast, do the same with regards to the accomplishments that you were able to make as a result of making wise decisions. For example, if you paid off debts this year evaluate what you are doing with the extra money. Are you applying it to the next debt in line? If you are debt free; how are you allocating those funds? Will that EXTRA money be used to fund or increase your emergency fund or will you use to increase your retirement fund? Always seek out ways to improve or re-write your current financial goals. Stagnation and mediocrity should be eliminated from your plan. Design a financial plan that is tailor-made for your family. Using a family or friend’s financial plans should not be the metrics that you follow. What works for someone else may not work for you. However, making wise, clear and precise financial decisions that will propel you to the next level should be considered and implemented.
Please feel free to share at least one thing that will be on your financial wealth reflection list once you have carved out time during this Christmas holiday season.
E-mail me at christineroebuck@livemylifedebtfree.com | Like us on Facebook.