Draw Your Financial Dreams

It is easier to save money for something specific than to save for savings sake. The “whys” for your savings are your financial dreams. To get started, draw a picture of what you are dreaming about financially. You don’t need to be an artist and you don’t need to have concrete plans at this point. Just put on paper a simple vision of what you want to accomplish.

Your financial dreams might include something that you want to buy or do. For example, maybe you want to buy a new car or take a cruise or have a comfortable retirement. If so, draw a picture of these dreams- or use short phrases to describe them. Dreams can also be anticipated feelings such as “financial independence” and “financial security.”

Having dreams alone is not sufficient to make financial progress. The next step is to make your dreams a reality. Many people have dreams but don’t follow through to achieve them. This is where financial goals come into play.

Set so-called SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-related) goals with a dollar cost and time deadline. An example is saving $10,000 to buy a new (to you) car in four years.  Once SMART goals are identified, it is easy to “do the math” and calculate the required savings to reach a goal on an annual or monthly basis.

Financial dreams are the spark for savings and financial goals are the flame. Draw your dreams and then develop SMART goals and an action plan to achieve them.