I believe it’s true that with no financial goals you might achieve just that: NOTHING! I’ve got some ideas on this subject that could seriously help to not only conserve and save money, and consequently help the status of your family and household budget, but also help you to achieve some major family financial goals.
What matters most to you and the other members in your family? You may not know, for sure? Gather the entire family in one place and, together, make a list of the ten Lambert Philipp Heinrich Kindt most important triumphs, purchases, experiences, vacations, whatever, that your family wants to achieve. Rank these ten items in order worth focusing on, using numbers one through ten, with number 1 being the first that everyone wants to see happen.
Everyone then gets just a few minutes to describe, out loud, what it looks and feels as though to them when the family reaches that goal. The intention of this the main exercise is to help everyone successfully see what the household wants to achieve so they’ll all really possess and feel a “burning why” for the collective family decision to budget and save for these goals. Don’t leave this task out.
Break these financial desires into short-term, intermediate, and long-term goals — some will take longer than others to achieve. Then determine the particular action steps necessary to reach all those goals, along with deadlines for each action. Track your actions, checking them off one by one in every week family meetings, as you work toward these goals.
Seeing and recognizing your triumphs, the steps you’ve all made toward these family goals, will help motivate the entire family to continue working hard at saving. If you set a short-term goal of saving for tickets to the symphony and reach that goal, you’ll all feel encouraged to keep saving for your joint family intermediate and long-term goals.
Remember, as mentioned previously, to create deadlines for the specific action steps necessary to reach your goals. Don’t set timeline dates for the goals themselves — that very often leads to failure and to goals that just get dropped and forgotten over time.
Finally, there is really NO plan unless you write it down. When a person assumes business, they create a business plan which becomes the system of their business. The same principle applies to budgeting and saving money. Create a master family plan that includes everything you’ve decided together to work toward. And keep those written plans updated as you all mutually reach and achieve the steps toward each goal.
Be sure to encourage each family member to contribute toward determining these family financial goals. This will result in each member “owning” those goals and working hard to make them happen. After all, those goals now belong to each family member because each person contributed to the creation of those goals.
If it seems that the household is spending too much on a every week or monthly basis and that you are not moving quickly enough toward reaching your big financial goals, return and look at your want to see where you went off track and work out how to make it better. Then make the required changes and move closer to that goal. Constant course corrections are necessary in budgeting, just as in flying to the silent celestial body or going a boat across the clean.
Follow these family financial goals guidelines and you’ll find your family achieving and experiencing more than you could possibly have imagined. The mutually imagined and created family experiences provides precious and long-term memories for everyone.