For those who do have a plan in place, now is the best time to do a “mid-term check” of how you are doing with your goals for this year in personal finance.
What Goals?
Do you have goals that you can look at for the 1/2 of the year? Some goals really are only measurable at the end of the year, but you can still try to see what progress you have made on these full-year goals and get an indication of whether you are going to succeed or fail in the dream. If you feel it’s premature to judge your goal (or goals) that is fine, but you will eventually have to get out some measurements to figure out whether you have hit your goal or not.
It’s important in your plan to have goals that are measurable in some fashion or another, if not, how can you tell whether you have succeeded or not? Simply saying, “I want to be more sound financially,” may sound like a good goal, but how do you measure that? “I want to lower my Credit Card debt by $2000”, is a much more tangible and rock-hard goal to either hit or miss.
Remember, you need to set achievable goals as well.
Why Success or Failure?
What caused you to succeed or fail in your goals so far? Are they within your control to fix them?
Example 1: You are investing in GIC and the interest rates are too low for your liking. What can you do? If you want the security of GICs, not much (unless you work for the Bank of Canada, in which case, you might be able to do something).
Example 2: Your Nortel shares are not recovering back to the $120 you bought at, and you want to do something, but what? Sorry, I couldn’t resist…
If your investments need re-balancing or rethinking, now might be the time to do it, instead of riding the bomb down if you think you are investing in a dog investment.
Next Steps Financially
What are the next steps to take to recover or continue your success in your plan? Let’s talk about that part tomorrow.
Celebrate?
If you want to go and have a nice coffee, success at mid-year is good, but a full year of success is much better. Save the champagne and big dinners out for the new year (if you can afford it).
The Series
- Time for Mid-Year Financial Check Up is never a bad time to see where you stand financially.
- What to look for in your Personal Finance Plan and how to deal with success and with failures.
- Mid-Year Personal Finance Check Up (Now What) is always a good question to ask.
