Top 6 Money Tips to Reach Your Financial Goals

Setting financial goals is an excellent way to be intentional with the money that you work so hard for. By setting yourself up with attainable goals, the money you make, spend, and save is much more trackable. Therefore, the improvements you make in regard to your finances are much more obvious and rewarding. You can definitely reach your financial goals.

If you’ve already set some goals for yourself, or are considering ways to do so, keep on reading to learn about 6 money tips to reach your financial goals.

1. Get Organized

One of the very first things you can do to help yourself attain your financial goals is to get organized. This means, start tracking your income and expenses. It may not seem like a big deal, but simply having a better idea of what’s coming in, and how it’s going out makes you more aware of your finances.

2. Shop Smarter

Shop smarter is another way to say shop less. Chances are, the long term financial goals you’ve set out for yourself are more important, or valuable, than the non-essential items you currently spend your money on. Avoid common money mistakes.

We aren’t saying don’t spend your money, or don’t treat yourself every once in a while with a nice meal, gift, or vacation. But we are recommending to reevaluate your shopping habits and see what you can cut out.

3. Eat Out Less & Meal Prep Instead

A tried and true way to save money, so that you can attain your goals later on, is to eat out less. Buying food in restaurants is delicious and convenient. It’s valuable to the local economy, it’s social and fun. But you don’t need to eat out every single day.

Meal prepping, or preparing your lunches and dinners ahead of time, is a great way to save money because store bought food is cheaper than restaurants. Yes, you have to work and clean more, but we think you budget will thank you afterwards.

4. Build Strong Credit

That fact of the matter is that we cannot always afford things on our own, especially big ticket items. That’s where buying things on credit comes in handy. Building a strong credit is crucial for being able to get the financial support you need when you need it.

Some easy ways to clean your credit are:

• Always pay your bills on time
• Make frequent payments
• Keep credit cards open for a long time
• Apply for higher credit limits

But beware of having high debt balances, as that can impact your ability to borrow money when you want to buy a car or a home.

5. Get Out of Credit Card Debt

This item follows on the above: yes, it’s true that you need to have credit in order to have good credit. But credit cards can be a slippery slope. A dinner out here and there, a car repair, maybe a down payment on a vacation — suddenly you have thousands of dollars on your cards and are struggling to pay them all down.

This is a normal part of American life, however, so don’t panic. Instead, consider ways to make an immediate, actionable plan to pay off your debt and focus on that like it’s your job. You can employ methods to pay cards off, such as the snowball method (pay smallest debt first) or the avalanche method (pay highest interest card first). Or you can consider a debt consolidation loan, where you take out a loan at a lower rate than your cards and pay them all off. You are left with a single, lower-interest monthly payment, and a crystal-clear timeline of when you will be out of debt.

6. Invest Your Money

There is something incredibly satisfying about investing your money into something, or someone, and watching it grow without little to no effort.

Investing your money can seem intimidating or confusing. The truth is, at times, it is. But nowadays, there are infinite resources available to inform yourself and learn at your own pace so that you can make your own financial decisions.

Some ideas for places to invest your money are:

• High yield savings accounts
• Real-estate
• The stock market
• Employer retirement funds

Attaining your financial goals is very rewarding. Whether it be because of a healthy retirement account, college funds for your child or a dream vacation, we all deserve to be happy and empowered by the money we make, spend, and save.