I don’t know about you, but I think it’s fun to dream about how you are going to spend a chunk of money. Will you deploy it into specific income-producing items, or use it to generate additional income or cash flow? Dreaming about how you are going to spend money is part of the third principle.
3. Set goals.
Setting goals requires more than just dreaming about them. You have to make a plan and put it in writing. You need to set goals not only on how you are going to spend money, but also as to your desired income (monthly, annually, etc.).
You also need to set goals regarding your expenditures. When it comes to setting expenditure goals, there are four big categories into which all spending falls:
- Giving
- Investing
- Saving
- Lifestyle
I deliberately put lifestyle at the end of the list because I believe if you are going to get control of your money and set goals, you have to make sure your first dollars go to your giving. The next portion needs to go toward investing. Third would be saving money for things such as future large acquisitions. The remainder goes toward your day-to-day lifestyle.
What you just read is contrary to the average American lifestyle lived out by well over 80% of those you see or with whom you associate. Most people put money toward lifestyle first, often leaving little, if anything, to put toward giving, investing, and saving.
Don’t be normal. Set goals for both your income and expenditures. Do you want to increase your giving 10-20% over the next year? Do you want to increase the amount you are saving and investing? Do you want to increase the good things in your lifestyle? Then you need to increase your income, which means knowing how much you need and how you can get it.
I’m sure we have all taken time to write out goals at some point in our lives, and then we set those goals aside only to come back to them months or even years later and looked at how many of those goals were actually realized in spite of not visiting them on a regular basis. Imagine how many more might have happened if you would have deliberately thought them through, put them in writing, and visited them every month or so.
