Have you set some New Year’s Resolutions for this year around your financial life? Whether it’s saving for retirement, paying off debt, or creating an emergency fund – your financial goals can be reached when you set, monitor, and measure these priorities and take action!
The video below gives three quick tips to set up your “money goals” for 2023 and stay on track as we get into the new year. With planning, discipline, and dedication, you can make financial security a reality in 2023.
Any money questions you’d like answered? Our Money Hacks series is created from conversations we have with employees, investors, savers, and all people planning for their financial futures. What topics are on your mind for our next episode?
Video Transcript:
Hey, this is Alex Assaley with MoneyNav. It's episode number 100 of Money Hacks. I can't believe we made it here. And it's the second week of January, so hopefully, your goals and New Year's resolutions are rolling right along. We wanted to do this video on how to nail your financial goals and your resolutions when it comes to your money for 2023.
So that you can get on track and work towards achieving financial success and financial security. So, if you're a couple of weeks in the year and you, maybe you haven't started just yet, or you haven't really formalized your money or financial goals for the year, or maybe you're just getting started, I want to make sure you have a system to achieve those goals.
I've got a few tips for you. The first one, probably the most obvious is to write it down. Put some real quantitative numbers around that. As an example, I'm trying to cut my spending in these areas by $50 or $100 a month, and I want to save $200, or $300 a month towards an emergency, towards an intermediate-term financial goal, or towards my retirement.
Make it really something that you can identify and measure throughout the course of the year. The second goal creates a simple but efficient method to revisit and track it through the year. That doesn't feel overwhelming. That doesn't make you feel worried but you can check in every couple of weeks or once a month to see where you are.
We have a platform MoneyNav, which is our financial wellness hub that allows users to aggregate all their financial accounts. It allows 'em to track their spending, their savings, and their net worth in real-time. You might look to use something like this or even just an Excel spreadsheet or pencil and paper.
But ultimately, we think the best goals that are achieved are the ones where you have a way to measure it consistently over time. And so, the third tip is how do you do that? This is the time right now, I think, to revisit your overall financial picture and in particular your cash flow plan. If your goal is to improve your savings and pay down certain liabilities you have, like student loans or credit card debt a lot of this starts with having a sound cash flow strategy every month. So, our recommendation once a year for an individual or for a couple, or for a family, is to get together and look at how much money you have coming into your household on a monthly basis. And then where that money is going, what are the spending needs that you have on a monthly basis to identify if you are really efficient in optimizing your spending.
And in addition to that, make sure that if there are certain one-time or irregular expenses throughout the course of the year, like birthdays, gifts, holidays, and travel, that you build that into your cash flow planning budget. But resetting that and looking at where your money is today, where your money is going on a monthly basis, is the key to unlocking your ability to actually meet a goal, to pay down debt, or to increase savings over the course of one month, one quarter and one year.
We have a lot more content coming out of the Money Hacks videos, our MoneyNav site throughout the course of this year. All around helping you achieve your financial goals. If you have questions, please feel free to reach out. If you have other tips or strategies to nail your resolutions, you know, put them into comments or post them. We'd love to hear feedback. Thanks. See you soon.