How to Maintain Financial Discipline for Reaching Your Goals
Life is all about making goals and reaching them. If you want anything out of life, you have to create a savings plan. It doesn't matter whether your plan is for your retirement, a huge purchase, or simply to build your savings. You have to develop a strategic way to gather the funds you need. Another thing you'll need to do is to stay disciplined. Many people fail at their savings plans and do not reach their goals because they lack discipline. The following is some information on strategy building and maintaining the discipline to reach your goals.
Maintaining Financial Discipline
Financial discipline is required even before you set personal financial goals. You have to have the time, patience, and motivation to sit in a quiet area and design your budgeting and savings blueprint. You'll need to look at your full financial profile so that you'll have accurate information when it comes time to set your goals.
Step one is to take a hard look at your debts, bills, and income. How much do you earn every week? That's probably the easiest part of the process if you receive an hourly wage or salary. Write that down. For example, you earn $500 a week. Now let's move on to part two, which is calculating your monthly expenses.
You must be careful and take your time when you're calculating your monthly expenses. Add a little extra to the bills and debts to allow for fluctuations and times when you might want to pay a little extra toward your bills. You'll also need to add any money that has to leave your wallet for recreation and necessities. So let's say you have to pay out a total of $1,200 a month, or roughly $300 a week. Subtract the money you need from the money you earn, and you'll get $200 a week. Now you can start your goal based financial planning.
We'll just say that you want to buy a used car. You might need to save $2,000 for the car. You have $200 available every week that you can use for this goal. However, you don't ever want to put everything you have into the savings. You'll need to think of an amount to save up that you can easily store with the right amount of financial discipline. Let's take half, for example. You'll need to save $100 every week until you save the $2,000 you need to buy your car. You can see from your calculations that it will take you 20 weeks to save the money you want to save. You now have an intact plan to reach a financial goal. All you need from this point on is the financial discipline to stick to the plan.
What is Financial Discipline?
Financial discipline is a term that describes your commitment to your goals. Once you set a financial goal, you have to be motivated to reach it. You also have to be strong enough not to let anything get in your way. There's often a fine line between financial discipline and casual finance handling. You'll need to develop the strength and skills not to cross the line. We'll help you strengthen your financial discipline with the tips we share with you today. Use them to become a budgeting and saving guru and get everything you want and desire in life.
Tips for Staying Disciplined
Maintaining financial discipline is sometimes a tough struggle. These are some tips to help you along the way:
1. Visualize Your Dream
One thing you can do to help yourself keep your financial discipline and reach your goals is to visualize your dream. Suppose you want to save a down payment for a gorgeous four-bedroom home where you and your family will live. One of the best ways to stay financially disciplined is to take the time to visualize yourself owning that home.
Close your eyes and daydream about your future with the house and happy children in it. Do this every time you think about doing something frivolous with your money. Do it every time you get discouraged because you don't feel like your money is growing quickly enough. Do it every time you just don't feel like saving money. It will help you remind yourself of the possibilities and the potential you have. You don't have to do it for long. Even a two-minute refresher will boost your courage and stamina.
2. Use a Reward System
It might also help you improve your financial discipline if you reward yourself every time you achieve something. For example, promise yourself a "gift" every four weeks that you keep your commitment to saving money. The type of reward you give yourself depends on what you like. Buy yourself a brand new piece of exercise equipment if that's what you like. Take yourself out for dinner at Red Lobster if you like to eat fine seafood. The choice is yours. Rewarding yourself will activate the rewards system in your brain. You'll actually become even more motivated to reach your goals if you know that you're going to be able to enjoy something you want every period.
3. Talk Yourself Into It
Self-affirmations are wonderful motivators. They can work for financial discipline as well as building self-esteem and confidence. It's easy to get started with self-affirmations. All you need to do is "talk to yourself." Hold your own personal pep rally every day by looking in the mirror and telling yourself what you're going to do. For example, tell yourself, "I will save $2,000 in 20 weeks," or "I will have the money to buy the car I want in 20 weeks." The most important part of self-affirming is the "I will" statement. You should never say "I can't" or "I won't." Always use positive self-talk to help give you the fight to earn what you need and want. You'll find that you feel more encouraged once you realize that you're in your corner.
4. Use Automated Methods
Automation is a great way to stay on point when it comes to financial discipline. We firmly believe that the "out of sight out of mind" method of saving money helps grow savings faster. For example, your employer probably has a system set up that will allow you to designate the bank accounts for your paychecks. What you can do is have $100 of your paycheck automatically go to a special bank account you have set up for your car savings. That way, you won't see it before it leaves your possession. It will go straight to the bank account you set up, and you'll never miss it. It's more difficult to save money when you allow it to pass through your hands or in front of your eyes first. Therefore, automation might be the way to go for you. Try for just 30 days and see if it works well.
5. Employ a "Sponsor"
The concept of a sponsor might have originated in drug and alcohol addiction programs, but it can help financial discipline growth. A sponsor is a person who knows what your goal is and supports you in your endeavors. He or she is interested in achieving the same goals. This person will hold you accountable when you fail to meet your goals and strengthen you when you feel weak. It's best to employ a person with whom you're very close. A spouse or a family member would be ideal. However, you can use a close friend if you trust that friend enough to discuss your finances with him or her.
6. Create Additional Funds
It's always good to have more money to work with when trying to reach a financial goal. The money you earn, the more money you can keep for yourself after putting the money away for your goals. Therefore, you may want to consider picking up a part-time job for some extra cash. It doesn't have to be anything elaborate. You can find an online job to do, for example. You can also go out and look for side jobs that you can work and get paid for by the day.
7. Read Books
A wealth of self-help books and materials is available to assist you in reaching your goals. You could always delve into the self-help realm if you're the type of person who likes independent studies. Self-help materials can give you insight into other people's success stores, and they can give you some new tips that you may have never before heard of. It's worth a try. Do some reading the next time you get the urge to improve your financial discipline. We can give you access to a huge assortment of personal finance information.
8. Keep Some "You" Money
As we mentioned before, you don't ever want to put everything you have toward the bills or a savings goal. That kind of tight saving can burn you out quickly. You may become frustrated that you never seem to have any money for yourself. That's why we recommend keeping a portion of your earnings just for you. You'll have to decide on an amount that will make you happy, whether it's $25 a week or $100 a week. You deserve it because you worked hard for it. Therefore, you should give it to yourself every time you earn a paycheck. Check a savings account options below:
9. Learn Your Needs vs. Your Wants
You'll need to consider your needs versus your wants when trying to keep your financial discipline. Create a list of things you need and then put a list of things you want but don't need right next to them. Items of need include food, clothing, fuel, and the like. Items that you want may include fancy furniture, new gaming systems and electronics, or hobby items. Look at your list every day so you'll know where to focus your spending.
10. Be a Smart Shopper
Smart shopping is another part of financial discipline that can help you reach your goals. You don't have to break yourself to buy the things you need. You can always shop smarter. Sign up for memberships at grocery stores so that you can take advantage of their deals. Start using coupons and promotional codes when you buy things. Shop the clearance racks when you're looking for clothing. All of these steps can keep more money in your household and provide you with more money to put away for your savings effort.
11. Avoid Impulse Purchases
You should always try to avoid making impulse purchases. One example of an impulse purchase is buying a new gaming system at launch when you already have one. Yes, it might seem exciting to get the gaming system before many other people get it. However, the cost might be 25 percent of what you need to save for your more important goal. That money can get you to your goal much faster and keep you on track. Therefore, it might be best for you to take a deep breath, count to 10, and think about your new home or car before you make an impulse purchase.
12. Open a Rewarding Bank Account
Opening a high-yield bank account can help you to reach your financial goals faster. You may want to go ahead and look for a bank account that offers the highest interest payments rate and start putting your funds there. You can also look for banking institutions that are offering promotions at this time. You could earn an additional $100 to $500 just by banking with a provider that's offering such a promotion. Read the fine print carefully, as you might have to meet certain requirements to qualify.
13. Slash Your Bills
Finally, you can boost your savings if you trim your bills. Start with your household bills and your leisure bills. Your cell phone bill might not have to be as high as it is. Your cable bill could stand to lose a few channels. You could also stand to change your car insurance up a little bit. Try slashing some of your household bills and see if it helps your financial discipline and savings endeavors. You might be pleasantly surprised after just 30 days of participating in the new system.
Use all of these tips because they're golden. You'll think of additional ways to stay financially disciplined once you get into the routine of keeping yourself together.
Why We Exist
Our company exists to help debtors to reach their financial goals. We've been in the business for many years, assisting debtors with finding an array of products and services they require for success. We cover three core areas of personal finance: education, products, and information. If you choose to work with us, we can lead you to just about anything you need for your personal financial growth.
We aren't lenders, but we can send you on the path straight to a reliable home loan, consolidation loan, mortgage, or something else. We can also connect you to a trustworthy credit counselor, tax specialist, or investment expert if you need to learn more. Furthermore, we can provide you with access to a wealth of informational documents if you're the type of person who likes to learn things independently.
We use a one-stop-shop concept because we believe in providing our customers with a hassle-free experience. That's why we recently developed a new product that's set up to help you to find everything you need in one place. It's called Goalry, and it works like an online shopping mall. You can feel free to "walk-in" and browse all the stores any time you like.
Achieve Your Financial Goals. Goalry Helps You Track Your Progress. Join Now!
About Our Goalry Product
Goalry is an intricately designed portal into your most needed financial tools. Sometimes we like to refer to it as a financial goal mall. That's because you can visit the mall and help yourself to reach any goals you might have in the personal finance area.
The first thing you'll want to do is enter Goalry and sign up for a member ID. The member ID will give you access to all three floors of the Goalry mall. Our first floor is the social community. The second floor is where you'll go for financial education. The third floor is the main entrance, and it contains all of the financial goal stores. All you have to do is choose a financial goal such as "saving your money" or "raising your credit score," and you'll have access to the store that provides you with information and access to help you do that.
For example, the Creditry store would be the place to go if you want to raise your credit score. The Budgetry store might be where you want to go if you want to improve your budgeting efforts to save money. It's up to you. Think about signing up for a member ID so that you can browse the mall. Reach out if you have any further questions. We're here to help you reach your goals.