Discover These Top Personal Finance Goals Examples
Perhaps you want financial stability. Do you dream of five or six-figure bank balances, but you have to scrape change together to buy a burger?
Starting out doesn’t just seem tough. It is tough. You can make it easier though. You started making it simpler to reach your goal the minute you began studying finance.
You can get ahead. Doing it one step at a time works best.
It can seem like you will remain stuck at zero forever though. Not necessarily though. You could be the next Oprah Winfrey or Howard Schultz or Dwayne Johnson or Shahid Khan. What? Do you think that is unlikely? Each of them and the other six people profiled in this article provide real-life personal finance goals examples that show that regardless of where and how you started out, you can become financially stable and successful.
Each of them came from a poor or lower-middle-income background. None of them had money to start with, but they did have an idea, determination, and a fabulous work ethic.
So, how do you become comfortable, a millionaire, or a billionaire? You set personal financial goals, and you get to work achieving them. You let nothing stand in your way of achieving your goals. Draw inspiration from these personal finance goals examples.
1. Make a Plan And a Budget
Image Source: Chicago Sun-Times
Stick to it. You have to know what you have and spend it wisely just like the former CEO of Starbucks Howard Schultz. Schultz grew up the projects. In interviews, he has talked about his early life recognition that others had more resources and money. He grew up determined to become one of those people.
He parlayed his talent on the football field into a scholarship to the University of Northern Michigan. After graduating, he took a job with Xerox. He worked and saved.
He took over an existing coffee shop called Starbucks. When he began working for the company, they had 60 locations. He worked his way up to chief executive officer (CEO) and grew the coffee chain from 60 locations in the US northwest to 16,000 locations throughout the world. The guy from the projects now has a net worth of $2.9 billion.
2. Start a Side Hustle
Image Source: Zimbio
Get a “side hustle” (also called a side gig) or get a second or third job. People who really want success and financial stability willingly work. You can make a dent in your debts or save up for your dream just like billionaires Do Won Chang and Jin Sook who own the Forever 21 clothing chain.
In 1981, the couple moved to the US from Korea. He worked three jobs at once while they planned their first store. The husband-and-wife team split the work, just as they do now, and opened their first store in 1984. Today, the couple has a net worth of $3.3 billion and Forever 21 sites 790 stores throughout the world. The couple did what more than half of Americans do – they worked multiple jobs. In 2019, 57 percent of US residents worked at a side gig; 36 percent of those workers reported an income of at least $500 per month.
3. Commit to Your Education And Make It Happen
Image Source: Evening Standard
Study hard to earn academic scholarships. Find a sport at which you excel and earn an athletic scholarship, too. Apply for financial aid so, you earn grants. Get a job and put the money toward school just like Shahid Khan did when he worked his way through the University of Illinois. Khan may own Flex-N-Gate, soccer club Fulham, and the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars now, but when he moved to the US from Pakistan, he worked as a dishwasher to pay for his tuition. He earned every penny of that $7 billion net worth. It takes work.
4. Think For Yourself
Image Source: InStyle
Envision ideas that others do not. Write it all down and make a plan to achieve the goals. These steps can take years just as they did for media magnate Oprah Winfrey. The woman now known as “O,” grew up in abject poverty in Mississippi. Determined that she would not dine on fried spam for every holiday meal, she made a plan that included college. Studying hard in high school, she earned an academic scholarship to Tennessee State University, studying broadcast journalism.
She also worked her way through school, obtaining a job at the age of 19 at a Nashville television station. She worked her way up, becoming the first African American television correspondent in the state. She took a job in AM radio in Chicago, Ill. in 1983 which became "The Oprah Winfrey Show." It transitioned to a television show on Chicago’s WGN and eventually got picked up nationally. Today, Oprah runs a media empire consisting of TV shows, a magazine, website properties, and apps. She earned her net worth of $2.9 billion.
5. Never Quit Working
Image Source: Agile Project Management
If you get fired, you immediately find a new job or you start your own company. Sometimes you do both as the late Steve Jobs did. Jobs was just 21 when he co-founded Apple which succeeded as a firm. A multi-millionaire by 23, he hired the CEO, John Sculley, who fired him three years later.
Rather than rest on his laurels, Jobs started a new company, NeXT, also a success. He sold the company to Apple and won back his position as CEO. Jobs’ influence on computers and mobile technology continues years after his death. Chances are good you own one of his inventions – a MacBook or an iPhone.
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6. File For Bankruptcy If You Must
Image Source: Zimbio
If bankruptcy provides the only way to reduce the amount you owe to a reasonable amount you could repay, do it. You can work your way back from it just like singer/songwriter/actress Cyndi Lauper did. Before she worked as a solo artist, Lauper performed in a band, “Blue Angel.” The band lost money and Lauper had to declare bankruptcy.
That may have meant seven years of crappy credit score and no credit cards, but she did not give up on music. She kept writing, recording, and performing, and in the 1980s, became successful, topping the charts with "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," "Time After Time," “True Colors,” and "She Bop." Her success continued in later decades. In 2013, she won her first Tony Award for her Broadway musical score of “Kinky Boots.” In 2015, the Songwriters Hall of Fame inducted her, Toby Keith, and the late Jerry Garcia.
7. Save Your Money
Image Source: Forbes
Open a savings account. You never know when you will find the perfect opportunity. You need to have savings so, you can take advantage of the opportunities that come along that could vault you to the next level of real-life just like Alan Gerry, the founder of Cablevision.
His parents immigrated to the US from Russia, but the all-American Gerry served in the US Marine Corps. After leaving the military, Gerry attended a vocational school using the GI Bill, learning television repair. He opened a little repair shop and saved all of the money he made. In 1956, he spent $1,500 to establish a cable company. Thirty years later, his company Cablevision sold to Time Warner for $2.7 billion. It took a lot of work and creativity to turn a $1,500 purchase into a net worth of $1.4 billion, but you could do it, too.
8. Establish an Emergency Fund
You never know when you will need a little extra. 2020 illustrated all too well the need for each individual to save up an emergency savings account with at least living expenses to get you through three months. Enough money to last six months works even better.
Saving this money helps you avoid bigger problems. By saving money now, you could immediately repair a car when it breaks down. That ensures you still have transportation to get to and from work which ensures you continue to have a steady stream of income.
9. Create an Investment Account
Image Source: Vanity Fair
Do you know who know advocates using incremental, micro-savings, and investment accounts? Some guy named Dwayne Johnson, who you might know better as The Rock. Now, he co-owns the XFL football league, has successful wrestling and acting careers, authored a poetry book, and owns a production company, but before all of that he had $7 in his pocket and had just lost his job in the Canadian football league.
Before he became The Rock, he was a rolling stone dreaming of expressing himself in athletics and print. Knowing the value of savings and that you can start with nearly nothing, he advocates using apps like Acorns to save in micro amounts.
10. Develop a Determined Nature
Image Source: Entreprende
You need ambition. You need hunger for success. Talk less. Work more. Your dedication could net you financial success just like Mohed Altrad. He owns Altrad Group and serves as President of the Montpellier rugby club, but the man recognized as Entrepreneur of the Year Mohed Altrad came from poverty and violence. His mother belonged to a nomadic Syrian tribe and was raped in the desert.
Altrad was the product of the rape. His mother died when he was a child so, his grandmother reared him. Afraid of the growing insurgency in Ragga, his grandmother forbade him to attend school there. He ran away to Ragga, knowing that education was key to working his way out of poverty. After graduating high school in Ragga, he moved to France to attend university. He worked throughout high school and college, eating only once per day while in France to make his money last. He learned French once he arrived in the country.
Through perseverance and determination, he earned his college degrees, culminating with his Ph.D. in computer science. He humbly worked his way up in various French companies and saved his money, purchasing a small scaffolding firm. He turned that struggling scaffolding firm into Altrad Group, a major manufacturer of scaffolding and cement mixers to build his net worth of $2.6 billion.
Finally,
I typically wax poetic for a few thousand words of financial advice and setting financial goals; maybe a few readers jump on it and start saving or take a financial management class. Many people though seem to follow most articles with a negative statement like, “That would never work for me.” or “You talk a nice game.”
Hopefully, these ten diverse examples of wildly successful people who started from nothing and worked their way up to the top of their industries and massive incomes show you that success and financial stability can happen for you. If you do these ten things, you can and will become comfortable, at the very least. The individuals chosen for these personal finance goals examples came from the US or immigrated here. Some fluently spoke many languages, others did not know a word of the native language spoken in the country where they earned success.
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