5 Tips for Meeting Your Financial Goals

What are your financial goals? Whether you’re wanting to get out of debt, build an emergency savings fund, save for retirement (or even retire early), fund your travel bucket list, or more, we’re sharing 5 basic tips to help you meet those financial goals as part of a sponsored partnership with the CFP Board of Standards, Inc. (CFP Board). While you probably know I love sharing recipes and entertaining ideas, home decor tips, family fun ideas, and travel adventures with you all, you might not know that I have an interest in financial stuff too! A few years ago, that interest in finances and desire to save money (and grow our savings effectively) lead us to seek out a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ (CFP® professional). That decision, along with some of the tips below, have helped us meet some of our financial goals!

How to Meet Your Financial Goals

No matter your financial goals – whether it’s getting out of debt and just starting to build savings  or whether it’s investing sand growing your savings, these same basic tips will help you get there!

1. Know Your Money Habits  – How are you currently with money? Are you a saver or a spender? Really assessing yourself and your habits is key to moving forward. Like just about every other area in life, you can’t make good changes if you don’t really take inventory first.
2. Set Goals (Know Your Why) – Saving money is a lot easier when you know what you’re working toward. Paying off your student loans? Funding your kids’ college? Paying cash for a new house? Retiring early? Showing your family the world? Your goal(s) will help determine your next steps.
3. Live Below Your Means – That might sound a bit trite, but it’s really true. It’s definitely not always easy, but it is key to saving money. And it’s definitely been key for us! I’ve shared some of the ways we do this before, especially to help fund our travel bucket list – like ditching cable, buying used cars, using coupons, etc. 
4. Get Organized – Do you need a budget worksheet? Do you have a file for financial documents? Do you need a visual representation of your savings goal – maybe even a jar or something in the house? Assessing what tools you might need and getting things organized will certainly help you on the path toward meeting your goals. And if organization isn’t your strong suit, the next tip can definitely help with that!
5. Meet with a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ – A CFP® professional can help to make your dreams into a reality by assisting you in almost all of the areas above. They’ll help you organize, plan, and save for the future.

The CFP® Professional Difference

CFP® professionals are the trusted source for financial planning over other designations like Certified Financial Advisor (CFA), Professional Financial Specialist (PFS) or Certified Public Accountant (CPA) because CFP® professionals are required to complete extensive training before obtaining the certification. In fact, they’re required to have 4,000 or more hours of financial planning experience and are trained in 72 different They are trained in 72 separate financial topic areas ranging from investment planning to estate planning! So, no matter your financial goals, a CFP® pro will be able to really help you make a plan and get you on the right path.

Find out how a CFP® pro can help YOU today at letsmakeaplan.org!

For even more financial tips and information, follow the #LetsMakeAPlan tag on social media and visit facebook.com/CFPLetsMakeAPlan/!