With the new year comes New Year’s resolutions. What are you doing for your finances this year that’s going to leave you in a better position on December 31st than you are right now? And before you answer that question, if you say you’re going to do the same thing you did last year, why would you expect different results? Today, we’re going to talk about how to set your New Year’s resolution to leave yourself in a better position financially.
When it comes to finances, it’s important to keep it simple and consistent. What could you do this year to leave you in a better position than you are currently? Is it something as simple as making a budget and sticking to it? Or have you been saving but know you need to be saving more? Or have you been saving enough but not saving in a place where your money is accessible to achieve your short-term, intermediate, and long-term financial goals? Now is a great time to take a look at what you have been doing, what has been working, and what hasn’t been working so you could reach all of your financial goals without feeling strapped for cash.
This takes us to the beginning, which is basically understanding what your goals and objectives are. One of the biggest financial mistakes we see people make is really simple – their strategies are not aligned with their goals. So maybe your goal is to expand your business this year. What are you going to do to help achieve that goal? Or maybe you’re getting ready to send your children off to college? How are you going to achieve that goal without pinching your current and future lifestyle? It’s important to take a look at these things because missteps could have effects for years and years and years all the way into your retirement.
We always tell folks,
Every splash and every move you make financially has a ripple effect. It may not be apparent today, but at some point the piper has to be paid.
A great example of this is getting out of credit card or student debt. What’s the best way to accomplish this goal? We’ve covered this in several videos, but one piece of advice I could give you is to make sure you’re saving along the way. What if there was a way to begin saving while paying off your debt simultaneously? Would you want to know about that technique? And this goes back to what we had said in a previous video, how can you put your savings or pay yourself first on subscription mode? One way we’re able to help our clients and ourselves is by using a specially designed whole life insurance policy designed for cash accumulation to help meet all of these goals when it comes to paying off debt. By putting your savings on subscription mode and building up a pool of cash that you have access to in this whole life policy, you’re then able to access that cash to pay off high-interest credit card debt or student debt and then repay yourself and rebuild that cash value within your policy so that you don’t have to jeopardize your savings to pay off debt.
Another example is to utilize this tool to expand your business. But like we always say, it’s not what you buy, it’s how you pay for it. So whether it’s paying off a credit card, paying off some other debt, expanding your business, or taking advantage of an opportunity, either way, you’re buying something. If you’re using the right process to make that purchase, you will always be building wealth everywhere along the way. So you’re not taking that money out of circulation. You’re just utilizing it or repurposing it or deploying it somewhere else so it can get you another rate of return.
A lot of times when people are thinking about financial goals, they’ll think of long-term goals like a down payment for a house, retirement, or sending their future children to college. But it doesn’t have to be that complicated. Looking at what goals you have for this calendar year is a great feat.
So to summarize.
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- Make your goals, but make sure that your strategies are in alignment with your goals.
- It’s not what you buy, it’s how you pay for it. Make sure that how you’re using your money is going to be moving you forward not only for your short-term goals but your intermediate and long-term goals.
- Pay yourself first. Put your savings on subscription mode.
One of the biggest mistakes that you could avoid is wasting opportunity cost. Something that we always say is you’ll never see the interest you don’t earn. Every time you drain your savings and drain that tank, you’re losing so much opportunity cost and you’ll never realize exactly what effect that’s having over your lifetime. We call that the cash trap. When you buy something and pay for it with cash, you think you’re winning because you’re not paying interest. Unfortunately, you’re also giving up interest and people don’t realize that that’s the opportunity cost. Every purchase you make has a cost. You’re either going to pay interest if you finance or you’re going to give up interest if you pay cash. It’s pay up or give up. That’s why we say it’s not what you buy, it’s how you pay for it that matters.
If you’d like to get started with your financial resolution for the New Year and put your savings on subscription mode, we’d be happy to help you meet your goals. Feel free to schedule your free strategy session right here on our website. Or if you’d like to learn exactly how we put this process to work for our clients, be sure to check out our webinar, The Four Steps to Financial Freedom.
And remember, it’s not how much money you make. It’s how much money you keep that really matters.
