Let’s face it—knowing what steps to take with your money and when to take them can feel challenging.
That’s where checklists can be helpful—they can serve as a great way to get small, or big, things done step-by-step while tracking your progress along the way.
To help you get over the feeling of being stuck or any financial stress that you’re enduring, we decided to create a financial checklist to help you with making those first critical steps and getting started on your financial journey.
We’ve also created a downloadable version of the checklist at the very bottom of this article so that you can save it to your computer, print it out, and use it as a reference while you work on each item.
Before you even consider to start making any type of financial move, the best thing you can do is get clarity on where you want to be by setting financial goals.
When you work on your financial goals, it’s important that you’re setting both long-term and short-term financial goals.
You can think of your long-term financial goals as the larger, significant financial outcomes you want to achieve. Examples might include retiring by the age of 60, owning a time-share or vacation property overseas, or even paying off all of your consumer debt, including student loans.
Your short-term financial goals on the other hand are typically smaller goals that play a role in keeping you motivated and progressing towards your long-term goals. Things like opening a retirement account with automated monthly contributions of $100, building an emergency fund to 1 month’s worth of expenses, and paying off one credit card are all types of short-term goals.
I’d recommend setting three long-term financial goals, and three short-term financial goals to get you started.
Long gone are the days where a financial plan was regarded as a “nice-to-have” financial tool. It’s now recognized for its importance as an absolute must-have.
In fact, a financial plan is arguably the most important financial tool that you’ll ever have.
Not to mention that if you’re serious about reaching those financial goals mentioned above, you’ll want to make sure you spend time building a financial plan that helps you map out exactly how you’ll reach those goals.
Thankfully, largely in part due to technology, getting a financial plan is no longer a long, cumbersome, and expensive thing to do. With Savology, you can actually get started by building a financial plan in as little as five minutes.