What makes many of us have expectancy to the New Year? Well, it’s an opportunity to flip a new page, revitalise, and come up with a plan for a prosperous year ahead. It may be a warm welcome after going through a year such as 2020.
Perhaps some of your earlier plans and goals were disrupted, or possibly things failed to go as you anticipated. All in all, the year 2021 may turn the tide and bring the hope of a new beginning.
Therefore, like it is a habit for other years, you may have created a list of the resolution, well-crafted and set for a start. However, whereas you have come up with the list determined to stick to it, for many, it’s usual for the boxes on a list of New Year’s resolutions to remain unchecked. The question that you must ask yourself is, why?
The truth of the matter is, when you attempt to pick goals that are beyond your ability or are vague, there is zero chance for you to succeed. This is the reality in all different spheres of life, along with finances.
If you have financial challenges, looking for reputable lenders is the first step through platforms such as Loans SOS to help realise your New Year goals. But today, we are going to go through some valuable financial goals that you may include in your list as we enter into 2021 and check what you can do to modify them to fit your situation.
Make a list of financial goals
Do you have major items you’d like to purchase this year or in the coming years? It doesn’t matter whether you plan to save for a home, retirement, or a vacation, you’ll need to adopt a saving habit and let it become part of your financial goals. It’s advisable from a professional perspective to ensure saving becomes part of your financial goals plus create a savings plan to help get you where you want to be in the future.
For instance, if you plan to save about $2000 in the coming year for your travel needs. It means that you’ll set aside $166 every month for 12 months to reach your goal. You can even break this down further weekly, which brings about $38 in savings. Setting your goals and segmenting them into smaller portions may help you realise your goals faster and motivate you throughout the year.
After you’ve established your saving goals, you need to consider opening up another savings account for every goal. It helps to make sure the money you save goes towards a given purpose.
Review your budget
When a year ends, it’s good to go through your financial books to look at how you spent your money. Even though reviewing your finances habitually is healthy to help you meet your financial goals, checking your past years may give you a proper perspective. Reviewing your budget helps you shape your new beginning and how to spend your money moving forward.
If from your review you realise there’s a problem tracking back your spending habits, its high time you get back and set a realistic goal of making a budget in the first place. Nowadays, it is very easy through budgeting apps to help you, or you can look into available budgeting guides online to give you direction. For example, these budgeting guides can help you start clear spending habits:
- The reverse budget
- The zero-based budget
- The envelope budget
- The 50-30-20 budget
- The reverse budget
- The percentage budget
The idea is to identify a system that gives you a result. Adapting a system where you are disciplined in your budget is only part of your puzzle. Sticking to the plan throughout the whole process is what helps you attain your dream. You must exert discipline and find a strategy to solve problems as you work out the twists. The most challenging part of your financial goal is establishing a budget mechanism and agreeing to follow it to the end.
Ramp up your job hunt
The world went through tough times in 2020, and things changed for some people completely, especially their job security. Whether your finances were affected after losing your job, had your salary cut, or maybe looking for a way to adjust to the new changes, enhancing your job situation is a good plan and goal to achieve 2021 and beyond. Let’s identify some of the approaches you can employ this idea.
- Polish up your resume
Before you begin a job hunt, this is the perfect time to give your resume a new look. If you are not sure what to change or how to update the resume, research online to get ideas on improving it. Also, ensure you tailor the resume depending on the types of jobs you are looking for. Another area people ignore is interview skills, as some think this is inborn, but learning some of the skills to connect with potential clients may help you get hired fast. You can test this with your family and friends by holding mock interviews in person or virtually to gain confidence with some of the questions clients may ask you. Another shortcut to searching process is using job hunt tools to hook up with clients searching for people with your skills by placing your resume there.
- Improve your skillset
Before you enhance your career prospects, working on yourself first could make things easier for you. The best way to achieve this is going back to school or taking free online courses available online. Alternatively, you can join groups online that resonates with your needs to help improve on your skills. It doesn’t matter whether your work situation has changed or not; you can still find many opportunities to improve yourself to help the market better.
- Look for seasonal work
If you are yet to get to a long-term career, looking for seasonal work can help you keep your pockets loaded. The seasonal work can help sustain you for the short term while looking for permanent work. This also helps you to learn more skills and keeps you prepared for future job openings. It is good to keep earning few dollars here and there, which improves your career in the process.
Gear your financial goals around your situation
Setting up financial goals is easy for everyone, but sticking to the plan throughout is the challenge. Unless you’re committed to the end, dropping your idea along the way may not reap you anything. And in what ways can you improve on discipline to stay put? You need to create workable goals and start a journey you will reach to the end. Creating goals geared en route for your situation is helpful and can easily reach you where you desire. Here are some of the things you can do to attain that:
- Set a time frame
- Gear your financial goals around your efforts
- Measure your progress
- Set realistic goals
Conclusion
When coming up with financial goals, the fundamental part is to gear them to your situation and focus on things you control. Remember to be patient, adapt to the process, and try your best to stay on course.
