Personal Finance Goals, Build Wealth

In the last post, I explained the importance of setting some personal finance goals, and gave you a few examples to get you started. In this post, I want to give you some more ideas. So here are five more potential goals you might make this year to get your financial life in better order.

1. Create an extra $50-$100/month in your budget

This may be impossible if you are already on a very tight budget. But many people, or families, with some careful consideration are spending a little bit too much on non-necessities, such as clothing (we don?t need nearly as much, and/or spend too much for designer brands, is what I mean), entertainment, home and garden accessories, and so on.

With some work, you may even be able to cut back on the vitals, such as food and utilities. With food, for example, you may learn to be more diligent about taking advantage of grocery store specials. With utilities, you can begin to do things like turning off the water heater when it?s not in use and unplugging appliances when they are not being used.

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2. Finish out your emergency fund.

You may have not yet saved three to six months of expenses in a special emergency savings account. If not, that should be one of your priorities this year. If you can create extra money in your budget using the ideas in the above section, you will be able to complete your emergency fund all the faster.

3. Start a college fund for your kids.

Now, you may not be sure any or all of your children are going to college (most people can get along just fine ? and yes, make a great income ? without spending four years in an educational institution). But even if they don?t end up going to college, wouldn?t it be great if, when they graduate from high school, you can offer them a little starter fund for whatever small business or world exploration they may want to do?

And even kids who don?t plan on going to four or more years of college will benefit from taking some community college classes in the area of their interests. So socking away a little bit every month for each of your children can help them get a good start in life once they are ready to leave home.

4. Open up a non-retirement investment fund.

It really rots to have to be penalized ten percent just to have access to your own money, just because you?re ?too young.? In fact, it rots to have to ask for money that you worked hard for.

While retirement funds are great inasmuch as you save a great deal on taxes, there are those disadvantages. Sometimes, you want easy access to your money, and don?t want to deal with any red tape to get at it.

So if you have no mutual funds, bonds or annuities that are not connected with? 401k or 403b, you may consider starting one this year. Just in case.

5. Set up automatic bill pay.

If you still have to sit down once a month and write out checks for ten different companies, consider setting up automatic bill pay for whichever companies allow for it ? and these days, most do. Don?t worry ? we have been doing it for a decade, and we have never encountered any serious problems.

The one critical thing to remember is that if you set up automatic bill pay with a credit or debit card, then you have to cancel the card because someone steals it, or the number, you need to remember to go into your accounts and put in the new card number. If you don?t, generally companies will send you a notification that their attempt to charge your card didn?t work and will give you a grace period to change your payment method.

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Okay, between this post and the last you have ten personal finance goals to choose from. So decide how you can best improve your wealth-building and financial organization strategies this year, and take action.

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Source: http://more-retirement-income.com/five-more-personal-finance-goals-for-the-new-year

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