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Day 5 of America Saves Week - Long Term Plans

Day 5 – Make Goals and Track Progress

Taking part in America Saves Week is a great first step in the right direction of saving and financial responsibility. However, the saving process must continue if you wish to make a real difference in your personal wealth. The best way to do so is to set goals and track your progress. The following five steps will help you continue saving and reach financial goals

  • Record
  • Plan
  • Track
  • Achieve
  • Continue

The first step of the process is to record. What this means is to record your current financial wealth. In this case, consider it to be the amount of money in your savings account today. This step lets you know where you currently stand financially.

Next, you have to plan. Create a target or goal of where you want to be financially in one year; how much money do you want to have in your savings account. This is a number which will make you happy; not an amount to satisfy someone else. Make sure this amount provides a challenge, but is still reasonable.

Thirdly, you must track. You need to track your progress with your goal. This could be something that occurs once a month, once every two months, or once a week; when you track your progress if up to you. This allows you to reevaluate how much money or how often you need to deposit into your account, depending on where you stand.

After that, comes the achieve step. This step does not last very long, as you simply measure whether or not you have met your financial goal. If you have, great; if not, try a more reasonable goal and continue to save.

The last step in the process is to continue. The process of saving does not end after one year. Whether or not you have met your initial goal, set new ones and continue to save. Your new goals will be more long-term than your initial goal. Set another one year goal, but also create a five and ten year goal. The process works just the same for these, track your progress after you set your goal, and continue increasing your personal wealth.

Setting financial goals is a great way to achieve the things you want and need in life. Start now, record your current personal wealth and plan for your goals today,


Published Mar 1, 2013.