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How To Achieve Your Financial Goals Using SMART Planning
Meeting your financial goals throughout your life takes hard work, willpower and a great deal of organisation. Thankfully, putting these goals down on paper into a tangible and achievable plan is made easier by adhering to the rules of SMART planning.
These five principles – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely – will not only help you to financially provide for your most pressing objectives in the present but will also aid you in putting plans in place for your financial future.
In this article, we discuss how to put SMART planning into practice to achieve each goal along the way.
Your financial goals should be SPECIFIC
Everyone has different needs, desires and priorities when it comes to their goals, and your financial plan should reflect this. Targeting specific milestones and objectives when creating your plan will give you clarity surrounding what you are working towards while making it easier to stay on track.
Your financial goals must be MEASURABLE
The whole point of building a financial plan is to help you work towards your core objectives by hitting specific milestones at certain times. To achieve this, you need to look at the overall picture and be realistic about what you can save within your desired timeline. You must then create a plan around this to ensure deadlines are met, and schedule regular reviews to facilitate any changes that may need to be made.
Your financial goals need to be ATTAINABLE
While it is tempting to aim high when planning your financial future, you have to strike a balance between what is realistic and what is a pipe dream. However, this doesn’t mean your goals can’t be optimistic – they simply need to be attainable. List your priorities initially and figure out how to reach these objectives comfortably and with minimal financial pressure. This plan can be tweaked and amended as time goes on to ensure your most important goals will always be within reach.
Your financial goals should be RELEVANT
Ensuring your future is provided for is an essential exercise, but so is looking after your standard of living during your working years. Maintaining a work/life/family balance while also feeling out of pocket can be difficult to cope with. Similarly, there may be certain goals you wish to hit ahead of retirement that you simply don’t want to compromise on. For this reason, you should ensure that all goals included as part of your financial plan are relevant to how you envisage your experience of life, both now and in years to come.
Your financial goals must be TIMELY
To ensure success with your financial plan, you should aim at all times to meet the deadlines you set out for yourself. This will help you to achieve your individual goals promptly and reach the endpoint at a satisfactory point in your life.
Essentially, you will need to decide on your projected age of retirement and work back from this point to decipher what this translates to in terms of monthly and yearly contributions.
It’s also important to stay abreast of changes to the State pension in this country and to figure out how these shifts will affect your projected timeline.
Our experts are here to provide you with impartial financial advice
Creating a plan with so much to consider – and so much at stake – can be a daunting experience. Even with the SMART guide to help you along the way, many parts of your plan could be drastically improved with some expert assistance.
This is where Symmetry Financial Management come in.
With eight decades of experience, the team is perfectly placed to help you put a structure on your financial goals so you can create a plan that works for you and your family – at every stage of life, so contact us today to get started and allow us to help you plan the future you’ve always hoped for.
Remember to also check out our blog and resources to answer more of your most pressing financial questions.
If you’d like a free, no-obligation consultation for your mortgage, pension or financial needs, get in touch here, call us on 01 6831673 or email us directly on info@symmetryfinancial.ie.
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