Financial Goal Setting for Females

From birth to age eighteen a girl needs good parents, from eighteen to thirty-five she needs good looks.  From thirty-five to fifty-five she needs a good personality. From fifty-five on she needs CASH.

–Sophia Tucker

No plan can begin without a clear vision and goals. I am a huge believer in goal setting, MANIFESTING, and vision (I love making vision boards).  When I started my first company in 2009 after being employed full time as a pharmacist and going to law-school part time, I was filled with fear and anxiety but also with immense EXCITEMENT over the future of my success.  Of course there were naysayers along the way that questioned dropping out of lawschool and changing my career goals in order to pursue entrepreneurship but I resolved to never allow the doubts to defeat me.  I’m an intelligent woman and pride myself on making decisions that don’t jeopardize my overall well-being.  Unfortunately, that often leads me to overthink many things and avoid taking a lot of risks.  After reading books like Rich Dad, Poor Dad, attending entrepreneurs conferences and pretty much cyber stalking wealthy people, I realized that although I was earning a six figure salary, I WAS NOT setting myself up to be WEALTHY.  I also began to understand that I was taking the slow route and that contributing to a 401k and waiting on age 65 to roll around just wasn’t what I desired.  I needed a better FINANCIAL VISION.  I adopted “Unapologetically successful” as my mantra and made financial independence and living an abundant life, top priority.  I realized that I would never meet my financial goals without aggressive action and taking more risks with my investments.

What are your financial goals? To save to buy a new house?  Go back to school? Get rich?  What is your financial vision?  Think deeply about it.   Write it down.  Create a vision board illustrating it.  Start to envision your life and finances as you want them to be, not as they are.  There will be stumbling blocks and speed bumps along the way but you must push past them.  If you do not set financial goals you are setting yourself up to be on the road to wealth longer than necessary.  To get started there are four things you must do:

1. Calculate your financial goal(s). What you currently have + What you need to achieve your vision = your financial goal.  You can have more than one financial goal.  It might be short term or long term, modest or aggressive and subject to change.  The most important thing is to know how much you need.
2. Start researching. What ever your goal is you need to be looking into what it really takes to achieve it.  If you want to start a business, buy a house, take a trip overseas then you need to at least be googling articles and resources around the topic. My hobby is studying rich people.  Not athletes and heiresses or those who obtained a substantial windfall, but people who started from nothing and built a whole lot of something.
3. Calculate your net worth. It’s not about how much you make, it is about how much you keep!   You can make $100k a year but if you are $500k in debt you are in the NEGATIVE. There are a number of ways to determine your net worth but the simplest way is: Assets –Liabilities = net worth.  There are lots of net worth calculators online to help you do this.  Knowing how much you are worth and exactly how much you owe can be humbling but it is a necessary part of setting CLEAR goals by knowing what you are working with.
4. Know how much you need for retirement.  Hop on the Internet and Google “retirement calculator.”  Knowing how much you need, to retire at the age that you would like, is a key part of your financial vision.  As an example, one would need a nest egg totaling $2,000,000 in order to live off just $50,000 per year in interest and earnings from that nest egg.  Keep in mind that you CANNOT touch the nest egg (principal) itself.

Start TODAY and Happy Wealth Building!

-@YourFaveRPh