Family Financial Goal Setting

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By Vince Shorb

As most of us understand, written goals can be a powerful force that changes your life for the better. Discover how combining your personal goals with your families goals to reach your dreams.

When the entire family is working toward one goal you will be pleasently suprised on how fast you will see results. What’s more, when the entire family unit is working toward financial goals it can be a bonding experience that everyone will appreciate.

Working toward family financial goals brings families closer together. You will find that your family will begin to operate as one unit in order to reach those financial goals. Many top business organizations, sports teams, charities and sororities share common financial goals that bring everyone involved closer together. It works for them so let the power of family financial goals work for you.

What family goals to set.

Family goals should be set for all areas of your life including: health, personal development, spiritual/ religious and life goals. This article will focus on family financial goals; however you can easily adopt the techniques to cover the remaining areas of your life. Once more, each individual person in the family should set their own personal goals and have full support from the family.

By setting family financial goals and working as a family to achieve financial freedom everyone involved gets a sense of purpose and something positive to work toward. Children, parents and other extended members of the family will all benefit from the support of working toward family goals.

How to set family financial goals.

Setting family financial goals begins with identifying objectives that your family wants to accomplish. Take some time to figure out what motivates everyone. It could be that one family member wants to take a trip to Hawaii, another wants a nice dinner once a week, and yet another person in the family wants to cut a few years off their retirement schedule. Find out what everyone dreams about because this will help you understand each others goals and you’ll become closer because of it.

Once you have an understanding of what each family member wants it time to align your goals. Maybe you want to learn more about making investments, want to increase your 401k savings, would like that new car, or just want to have more money for a rainy day. The bottom line is that everyone in the family has to do their part. When everyone works together with a common goal of achieving financial freedom then everyone’s life improves. The ability to set family financial goals and achieve family goals will improve every aspect of you personally and your family as a whole.

Family Financial Goals That Work.

There are effective goal setting techniques available that will allow your family to maximize the effectiveness of your financial goals. One helpful technique to aid in accomplishing your goals is to set them using the S.M.A.R.T method.

- S ‘ Significant & Specific. The more detailed you are able to make your family goals the closer you are to achieving them. This gives you a clear target to shoot for and when you see what you’re aiming at you have a much better chance at hitting the bull’s-eye.

Be sure to make your family financial goals significant. They must mean something to your family so that they are motivated to reach them. Setting a goal of saving for a gallon of gas probably won’t motivate people but if it was to save gas for a weekend trip now that’s another story. Remember kids, teens and young adults are motivated by lifestyle not money. So be sure to relate money to being able to afford the type of lifestyle your family wants to live.

- M - Motivational & Measurable. Creating measurable goals will allow your family to celebrate when you acheive them. This makes goal setting fun and a true bonding experience.

The family financial goals that you set should be motivational to the entire family. Design goals that motivate and encourage each family member to do their part.

- A - Attainable. Dream huge and be realistic. You can be anything you set out to be; however growing gills so you can swim underwter probably won’t happen.

- R - Results-oriented, Reasons & Related. One way to maximize the effectiveness of your family financial goals is to phrase your goals in the positive. Using results-oriented words like “I accomplished,” “I received,” or “I have”, will direct your mind to focus on the outcome. Focusing on the outcome is one of the key steps to becoming financially free.

Your family financial goals should include the reasons too ‘ would you like money for college, a nice vacation, etc. It’s the reasons behind the goals that make us want to accomplish them. Who cares about money it’s the lifestyle that money allows us to afford that matters.

Family financial goals must relate to each other so the family works as a single unit. Setting powerful family financial goals starts with making sure everyone’s goals are heading in the same direction and not contradicting each other. For instance, if one family member’s goal is taking a family trip to the beach next weekend and another goal is to work that weekend to save more money ‘ those contradict each other.

- T -Time. Its important that your goals have a set deadline in place. Decide on a specific time so you push each other to accomplish them by a certain date.

Take an evening and sit down together for dinner with no interruptions. Get everyone’s dreams, goals and aspirations out. Find a way to align your goals to create a dynamic family that accomplishes goals together. Every goal you set out and accomplish together will bring everyone closer.

About The Author

Vince Shorb, the leading young adult financial literacy expert, prepares young adults for the financial real world. His course ‘Financially Free by 30′ is the first interactive, multi-media curriculum designed specifically for high school and college-age clients. Get your free copy of his latest book and instructional videos at http://www.FreeBy30.com .

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January 03 2008 08:40 pm | Household Budget and Money Management and Planning

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