PLAN TOGETHER…WIN TOGETHER

PLAN TOGETHER…WIN TOGETHER


Failing to Plan Is the Same as Planning to Fail Together



Unfortunately, most couples do not plan together. Rather, they just let their financial life happen to them. Letting your financial life just happen to you is like getting on an airplane with no clue as to where it’s heading.



There Are Three Fundamental Truths of Financial Planning



1. You can’t plan your finances if you don’t know where you’re starting from.

2. You can’t plan your finances if you don’t know where you want to end up.

3. In order to stay on track from your starting point to your destination, you have to monitor your progress.



So…Do You Really Know Where the Two of You Are Right Now?



If I were to ask you and your partner right now to describe your current financial situation, could you tell me your net worth? Do you know what your assets and liabilities and expenses are? Could you easily list on a piece of paper what investments you own, how much equity you have in your home, and on what and to whom you owe money? Is all of this information neatly organized in some easily accessible place? Could you quickly get your hands on it if you needed to? Or would getting your records together be an impossible project? If you’re like most couples, you probably didn’t score as well as you would have like to. That’s okay. In fact, it’s normal. The goal right now is to start addressing those problems.



The first step is to give yourself a financial cleanup. Getting yourself organized, a financial cleanup, is the first thing that you need to do when you decide to get serious about financial planning. You have to clean up the mess before you can move forward.



Next, design a purpose-focused financial plan. A purpose-focused financial plan is nothing more than a list of things to do (your goals) to enable you to live a life with the values that are most important to you. Here are seven tips on how to define those goals.



1. Make sure you goals are based on your values. The clearer you are about your values, the easier it is to base your goals on them – and the more you base your goals on your values, the more likely it is that you will achieve them.

2. Make your goals specific, detailed, and with a finish line. It is very important that you make your top five goals as specific as possible. Many couples want to be wealthier. Practically all of us want something we don’t currently have. In order to achieve a goal, you must know precisely what it is that you’re going after.

3. Put your top five goals in writing. I know it’s a cliché, but it also happens to be true: people who write down their financial goals get rich. It’s a fact. It does something to you subconsciously that often brings the goal to you.

4. Start taking action toward your goal within 48 hours. Anthony Robbins says, “It’s not enough to write down your goals. You’ve got to act on them.” His rule of thumb is that you should never leave a goal just “sitting there” without taking some action toward achieving it within the next 48 hours.

5. Enlist help. There’s a huge myth out there: the myth of the “self-made” person. The truth is that there is no such thing as a “self-made” person. No one ever reaches a really important goal without some sort of help from some other person. No matter what the situation is, human beings need other human beings to help them move forward.

6. Get a rough idea of how much money it will cost to achieve your goals. As you define your top five goals, you’re going to find that some may have nothing to do with money, while others are all about money. If a goal is going to cost money, and you don’t start planning and saving for the cost, you are not going to achieve it.

7. Make sure your goals match your values…as a couple. I can’t stress enough the importance of making sure your goals reflect what both you and your partner want. Don’t keep your top five goals to yourself. Share them with your partner. If you’ve got kids, share your dreams with them, too. Ask them what they’d like to see the family doing over the next three years. Ask them about their values, and then work together on a family list of five things that you all want to accomplish together.$

[In his latest training series, Ray reveals simple ways to start a business... find a retirement career...make extra money in your spare time... and more. These are the routes to wealth the rich employ. Click here to learn more about them.]