Here is the key to your Financial Toolbox

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Better Financial Planning Means Setting Goals And Good Time Management

When you have made up your mind to make that change in your finances it is important to remember that even if you go with some kind of credit management service your success or failure is going to depend on the goals you set and the time management you keep. In the coming week we are going to talk about budgeting but first we need you to start setting some goals with a general time frame to accomplish what you set out to do. However, for this week we want you to list and set reasonable goals of where you want to be financially and in life in the next five years. If you are going to have all your debt paid back in five years that’s fine but, be realistic. If you want to have your debt three quarters of the way paid, and maintain a seven hundred plus credit rating that is reasonable too. Just do not go wrong by thinking the Fairy Godmother of finances is going to save the day you will not find it in this blog or if you are real lucky you win the lottery but, chances are that will not happen either. There is no miracle software or miracle cure for repaying your debts. Just careful planning and if you need it some professional help.

Do yourself a favor and look at your total situation and list your debts and expenses. Just do that this week. Set that list aside and we will talk about how to set up a budget, and if you need it where to go to get help with budgeting next week. In the meantime here is a little guide I wrote about setting goals and time management.

“When I grow up I want to be like my wife!!!”

Multitasking is not one of my strongest assets. With the Easter Holiday so late in the year, a location change for the weekly business meeting I attend, and Memorial Day Holiday I have not been keeping up with everything I want to accomplish. During the winter months I have a little more time on my hands because a most of my regular work is seasonal. The business opportunity I have been working on is not at the point where I can leave my job and work on it fulltime. That is the plus side of this business I am working on is the ability to start part-time. The tough side is always finding enough time to work on my business without it interfering with family and my regular job. Here is where I need those lessons from my wife.

The first thing I need to do is get better about using my calendar. What I need to do first is duplicate the needs and events off the family calendar my wife posts for us. This way I can plan what I want to attend and what I can skip so I do not interfere with important family tasks and events.

I am good about using my calendar but for some reason or another I step away from keeping up with it when time seems more manageable. When the time seems manageable is when I should plan more and strive to get ahead. Sometimes it seems easier said than done.
I know I need to spend more time setting and managing my weekly goals. We all know we all have to start with the ultimate “Goal” or “Why” with anything we want to achieve. As we define the larger goals we need to break them down into smaller tasks. This means if I am not going to lose track of my ultimate goal I need to break it down into monthly, weekly, and then daily tasks. This way the ultimate goal will not seem so overwhelming. Here is where the business plan or the game plan comes in. You have the master list of those goals you want to achieve with the approximate deadline you want to achieve that goal. Keep them separate from your monthly tasks. After you have made your monthly list of tasks you bring it out to your weekly list of tasks. This is where you make your weekly list of tasks. Those tasks should be categorized by their importance and then scheduled in your calendar.

One thing you have to remember that you need to keep your master list of goals where you can see it frequently to keep you excited and ambitious about achieving those goals. During the week you want rely on your calendar to keep you directed. Once a week you want to pull out your weekly and monthly goal list and mark off what you have accomplished and re post on your list and calendar what is important to you. If you find a step or a task was not that important to you anymore or as you originally thought, forget about it and if it comes up later then accomplish it.

Take time monthly to develop your monthly list. Put a date and a time on your calendar to add your monthly tasks to that list. Make this appointment to yourself each month without exception. This is where you schedule your time weekly to work on your weekly list. The key to all of your lists are keeping a small notebook handy for your tasks and your thoughts. I need to get better with listing the tasks. I always seem to put down my thoughts when possible. The reason I said this is. No matter how strong or weak my time management can be at times, taking notes and getting things off your mind is essential to helping you relieve the pressure of not having enough time. With the demands of our daily lives if we take the time to write something down there is less of a chance you will forget something important, help your productive time go further in life, and keep the anxiety level down.

This Week’s Rant

We are not going to have a rant this week instead we are going to offer another suggestion about last week’s rant. People complain about their e-mail boxes becoming full of junk and spam e-mail. There is a cure for this. Open a second e-mail account. Designate one account for whenever you fill something out on line. That way you just manage the junk mail with the junk mail and the mail that is more important to you get managed in your regular e-mail box.
Let’s call one mailbox your commercial mailbox and the other your personal mailbox. When you fill form or direct an offer to your commercial mailbox you have control over whether that individual or company is going to sell your information to another list. I say this because when you have too much junk in your commercial mailbox you can just delete the entire contents without fear of losing something important. On the other hand if something interests you or is safe to you, you can forward it to your personal mailbox box and you will not have to worry about all that junk and spam. Eventually if you discover that you want that mail going straight to your personal e-mailbox go to where it says to remove your e-mail from this list (opt out option), you can reassign that particular auto responder directly to your personal e-mail in most cases there.

Filling out some auto responders can save you money. Last week we added Groupon to our sight. This week we added discounts from Kellogg’s. Guys this is like free money. You do not have to spend money to save money with these auto responders. They send the savings to you directly to your e-mail box. There is no hunting down bargains. You will not have to pay taxes on that money you save, and it is like additional income. If you are going to spend money on that product anyway get it at the biggest discount possible. The key is if you are not shopping for it or planning for it don’t spend it. A coupon or a sale is not a sale if you do not want or need it! Think of it as stretching the money you have instead of saving it at the register. When you have stretched your money so far as you have some extra put it in a savings account. Now that is saving. You just need to be able to invest some time into saving (stretching) money. It really can enhance your income if it is done right.

With a commercial e-mailbox you can also work on surveys. Surveys again as I said last week, people actually make a part-time income from surveys tax free. With a separate e-mailbox is where you can separate the products and services that mean the most to you from the ones that do not. Your commercial e-mail box where you can delete unwanted e-mail cancel the auto responders when you get time. You will find this extremely true with surveys. But, you can acquire some pretty nice stuff by taking surveys and there are some good ones to follow.


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