A financial plan is an essential component of an adult life. In fact, some may say you’re not effectively adulting without one. According to Nerd Wallet, “A financial plan is a comprehensive picture of your current finances, your financial goals and any strategies you’ve set to achieve those goals. Good financial planning should include details about your cash flow, savings, debt, investments, insurance and any other elements of your financial life.”
During the month of March, we will focus on Personal Finances: saving, investing, wise borrowing, estate planning, etc. However, well ahead of then, I released our corporate savings goal for the year 2021: $10,000.
Why do you ask? Because I wanted you to have time to consider what you were committing to in light of your current income, goals and debts, as well as to formulate an action plan to accomplish the goal of $10K saved at the end of 2021.
Tonight, on a live Instagram session (reposted below), Life Coach Katherine Coakley shared on Gold Setting, and essentially proposed that the goal is not enough. Instead, we must attach each goal to a why or a cause. For example, saving a dollar amount is okay on it’s own, but it is golden when we consider that saving can strengthen our discipline, get us closer to a home down payment and, for some, may be a way of telling the enemy we are tackling and eradicating “poverty mindset” from our bloodline.
To help you develop your why, I wanted to propose a few reasons for saving this amount that you may likely need to cling to in order to stay inspired throughout the year. But before we jump into the why, note that $10K is $833.33 per month or $192.31 per week. This is an aggressive goal for many of us so it will require budgeting and, for most, foregoing certain items and/or experiences.
Our Why
- Emergency Buffer – Saving $10K will strengthen your emergency fund and allow you to withstand what could otherwise be a financial disaster: a broken down car, home repairs, injury, loss of a job, etc.
- Short-term Expense – You may desire to purchase a car out-of-pocket or work towards a down payment for a home or property. I know some women who are saving towards IVF or for the birth of their child. Each of these are important whys that will keep you focused.
- Retirement – Retirement is an abstract concept to many of us as we may be at the very start of our careers or a little over a decade in; still, the reality that one day we will no longer be working is just that, a reality. Saving towards retirement is a great goal and one your older, future self will thank you for.
- Reducing A Large Debt – The money that you save this year can be applied to a large debt such as a home mortgage or high interest debt such as credit card payments. Reducing your debt burden will bring you more peace and is definitely a great goal to work towards.
- Peace of Mind – Imagine a life where the end of the month is approaching and you have enough to both live and take care of bills; a life where you are no longer living paycheck to paycheck. Saving can put you in this position. It allows you to adequately plan ahead as opposed to being a step or more behind.
- Eradicating Poverty Mindset – Poverty mindset is the belief that you will never have enough money. It is driven by fear, childhood experiences and often, but not always, poor financial literacy. Saving money can help you to take action to overcome this mindset. It will help you get used to seeing greater than 10s or 100s (or negatives, if we’re real) in your bank account and make seeing 1000s and even 10,000s a more common reality. We will talk more about this in later blogs because the fear that led to poverty mindset could cause you to make poor financial decisions in terms of how you or if you invest.
- Obtaining Abundance Mindset – The opposite of poverty mindset is an abundance mindset. An abundance mindset is a belief that there’s plenty of everything for everyone and lots of time to get it. There is enough money in this world for the Joneses to be rich and for you to be rich too! Scarcity mindset will keep you in the hamster wheel while abundance mindset will help you break out of the cage! To make saving a permanent part of our lives, we have to shift our mindset.
- Building Discipline – In order to succeed with this goal discipline is required. In fact, you will find that discipline is a free byproduct of almost any goal that forces us outside of our comfort zone: working out, eating healthily, etc. As you practice delayed or deferred gratification (i.e. saying no to lavish trips, impulse purchases, and unnecessary wants) you will undoubtedly strengthen your self control and discipline.
$10,000 is a significant goal. It is attainable but may require significant lifestyle adjustments. That said, if you’d feel more comfortable with a smaller goal like $1,000 or $5,000 then start there. No matter what dollar value you choose, develop a game plan, approach or strategy and determine your why. We’re gold setting after all.
What is your savings goal for 2021 and what is your why? We’d love to hear in the comments below!
P.S. Our goal for 2021 is 1000 subscribers to our YouTube channel. Please subscribe if you haven’t already and take a browse of our great content. We’ve got great plans like the upcoming event below!
I love you all and I’m always rooting and praying for you!
Love,
Zemi Stewart, Founder of Wife HER!