Half-Year GOAL Checkup Point

For the month of June, my goal for the blog was to help you reconnect with the goals you set for yourself in January, and to get you to refocus on them, to check on your progress and to recommit or modify them accordingly. As we are starting the second half of the year, I would like to talk about some strategies on achieving your financial goals for 2018. And since we are getting a bonus Monday in the month for July, what better time to focus on your goals and to highlight some of the finer points from June than right here, right now?!

If your main goal for 2018 is not tied to money, don't worry! You can apply some of these strategies as well. I will also state that all goals you set can help you improve your finances in some way. For example, if your goal is related to health and fitness, once you achieve the level of health and fitness you want, you will feel better about yourself and be able to monetize your business at a higher level. Even if you don't have a business and bring home a regular paycheck, you will be able to stand tall when you ask for a raise when you feel better about your self-image.

With all that said, let's move into some quick ideas on how you can raise your balance in your bank account by the end of the year. If you are already doing some of these things, congratulations! Please share this post with a friend and help her build her savings, investments and financial serenity.

1. If you are already saving 10% of your revenue for retirement, or for a big goal, make sure you are also setting aside 10% of any bonuses you receive, or from any other unexpected income - such as: tax refunds, refunds from stuff you may return to stores, little side jobs you may do while you grow your business, etc. 

2. If you handle cash, make it a practice to set aside in an envelope a certain denomination banknote (like $10, $20 or $50) anytime one comes to you, and then periodically put that cash into your savings account - and don't touch it until the event happens that you are saving for. This can be for your retirement or for a big purchase goal. 

3. If you want to teach your children how to save, consider starting them with setting aside the change they get anytime they spend a part of their allowance. That money can be then added into a savings account for them. Or if you are more determined and can shoot higher than that, veer a percentage of the allowance straight into a savings account.

If you have plans to take time off this week and spend it with your family, I hope you enjoy that time. I also hope you find a few minutes in the mornings to look over your 2018 goals, refocus and plan the second half of the year, so you can achieve those goals. Make 2018 the last year when you set these particular goals, so that 2019 can build on them and you (and your business) can get to the next level. 

Happy 4th of July! See you here next week for more ideas on how to build your financial serenity.

Goal Achievement Month - Chapter 4

STEP 4: Follow your plan and adjust or pivot when necessary

I realized that the path to achieving my goal was through building a business. I always believed this to be true: you can either be a star in your own movie or an extra in someone else’s. I always knew I was a superstar. The first action I took was to study about money and business from the greats in the field. I learned about the American financial system, most importantly how to keep more of the money I made, because I realized that making a lot of money was not sufficient when it fell through my fingers. I learned how to make the right financial decisions, how to send out a dollar that would bring back friends, not one that would follow its friends away from my pocketbook.

I also had to learn a whole new business language and to understand what business ownership actually meant. I started like many others with a home-based business in direct sales with a well-known network marketing company. It didn't get me too far on my way to financial independence, but it gave me the first basic knowledge about business, and I'm grateful to this day to my mentor who showed me the first steps. Especially because I had a huge disadvantage over Richmond natives - I didn't have any friends or relatives in the city who had known me my whole life. So I had to learn very quick to become good at talking to strangers.

When I was offered a position as an independent contractor with a life insurance company, I jumped at the chance of making my own hours and writing my own paycheck, based on the effort I was willing to put in. I doubled my income and within less than a year, achieved my first major goal I had set since arriving to the US: home ownership. 

I understood that knowing what to do from reading books was not enough, unless I acted on that acquired knowledge. Therefore, I built a few solopreneurship businesses, some more successful than others. I learned from each experience and I adapted. I felt stronger with each lesson and new doors opened with each pivoting moment. The field that attracted me was always the financial one because I learned that by sharing my knowledge in this field with others looking to build businesses in other fields, can lead to their success and set them on a path to their own financial serenity.

The hardest lesson to digest, when talking to other women about their finances, was the fact that most women are uncomfortable even thinking about their money, let alone talking about it. I made it my mission to help women (and a few good men) build better relationships with their money.  

STEP 5: Teach others how to achieve their goals, and partner up for accountability

Goal Achievement Month - Chapter 3

STEP 3: Make a flexible plan on how you will get it done

Armed with the knowledge on what we needed to get us to live together in the US, my husband and I got married and applied for my spousal visa, all in one day. And less than 3 months later, I was landing in Richmond, VA - my new home across the Atlantic. 

After I landed in the United States, I had a steep learning curve to adapt to a new country, new rules and new people. Many things that I had been used to for my entire life were done differently here. I adapted to most changes in a short period of time, the easiest thing to adapt to being the American version of the English language that I had studied throughout school. In my quest to build a life in my new country, I left behind everything and everyone who had been important to me. So I made a decision to make that sacrifice worth it by building a life of financial serenity. My definition for it at the time was to be able to do what I wanted when I wanted.

Coming from a country where everyone had a job working for a state-owned company, and then seeing a few "adventurous souls" be brave enough to become entrepreneurs - the foreign word was adopted into the Romanian language, since we did not have a term for it - I thought that finding a corporate ladder to climb on will take me to the ultimate goal of financial serenity. I was also naive enough at the time to believe that I was now in a country where my own achievements would be recognized and I would get rewarded for them with the jobs of my choice and the salary that I wanted. Coming form a country where it is more important who child, nephew or friend you are, that your competence in the field, I thought I was in a place where the fact that I didn't know people was not going to be an obstacle.

Wow, was I wrong?! I had to learn very quick that the corporate ladder was not the spot where I wanted to hang out, and that people promote you or not based on them liking you (or not) just as much as back home. And I also learned that I could not stand incompetence anymore than with my former employers back in Romania. So, after biting my tongue one too many times, I started looking for a better way. I had learned even before coming to the US that this is the land of opportunity, and I was convinced that mine was out there - I just hadn't found it yet. So I crossed off corporate career from my plan and moved on to the next idea. 

Goal Achievement Month - Chapter 2

1    STEP 2: Acquire the knowledge of what you need to accomplish the goal

I had a goal and I had a vision on why I wanted to achieve my goal. I could see myself living in another country and - most importantly to me at that time - not living in Romania. I was speaking this into being, I was acting as though it was a given. Even though initially I had no idea how I was going to accomplish my goal, I was convinced I would do it. At the time I had conversations with a friend and we both said we would leave the country, but we had different visions of what that would look like: I said I would live in another country for the rest of my life and only come back to visit; she said she would go work and return with the money to live in Romania. And we both got our wishes.

After coming home from the college experience in England, I started sharing first with my parents, then with my friends, my intention to leave the country after college, at some point. The strange thing about sharing my goal was that as I was repeating it, I kept getting more certain of the outcome – still without knowing when, where or how. And the interesting thing is that once they saw me so determined and sure of my idea, my parents started believing it would come true; and they also started acting like it was going to happen. Because of my college experience, the first logical choice was England, or somewhere else in Western Europe. After all, there were a lot of Romanians living abroad in that area, including a few of my friends. My ultimate goal became moving to the United States later in life, alter some years in another country or two.

And then my plans got changed when I met my now husband, and we wanted to be together. The goal now became moving to the US, without spending time in other countries, so we could be together. This also started as an idea and was soon developed into a plan. In a time where the information was not as easily accessible on the internet, I managed to find out details on immigration and the INS (now USCIS) rules. Following the online directions on their official website, my husband and I got married in Romania and applied for my spousal visa. Thus, 2 months later I joined him in Richmond, Virginia; and have been here ever since.

It was a stressful 3-4 month period once we decided to get married because we had to figure out the legal requirements for my transition from Romania to the US. I found lots of horror stories online about how hard it was and how long it took to be able to get there. All we knew at the time was that we wanted to be together and him living in Romania was not an option - language barrier, work challenge and lack of a personal place to live. 

I relentlessly scoured the internet and connected to people within Yahoo groups (Facebook was not even a dream at the time) and learn from their experiences what not to do. I also read anything and everything there was to know about immigrating in the US as a dependent of a US citizen. And then, armed with that information, I coached my husband on the documents he needed and on the steps we had to take. 

Goal Achievement Month - Chapter 1

STEP 1: Figure out what you want – beyond doubt (a.k.a. your WHY)

   
    When sharing my recipe for achieving goals, I want to start with the biggest goal that I set for myself and describe the way I managed to reach the goal. Of course, as they say “hindsight is 20/20”… so after reading many books on how to get things done, I realize that I had followed the steps without even being aware of them at the time.

When asked what my greatest achievement is, I always say that moving across the Atlantic and building a life for myself in a country where I only knew my husband. It may sound crazy, or scary, or too hard. Well, 15 years later, I am here to tell the story. I have achieved numerous goals since then but still feel this to be the greatest one, since it brought about the most radical change.

I was born in a small country in South-East Europe, Romania, in one of its largest cities. After finishing college and working for a couple of years, I moved to the United States to follow my husband. I was always an overachiever, I guess people would call me. Through my school years I was always at the top of the class and passed all my exams with flying colors. These seemed like reasonable things to do at the time, so I never really considered these major goals to be achieved. After a scholarship earned in college that sent me to England for 3 months, I realized there were things I wanted to achieve and a life style I wanted to live that were outside Romania.

The first step toward achieving my goal was setting it. And the very first thing to do in this case, was to get the idea – I found the one major thing I wanted to accomplish: moving to another country to build a career or a business. At the time this idea first came to mind I had no clue where, when or how I was going to do this. Looking back I understand that when you are young everything seems in a far distant future. And that was my first thought.

Once I came home from the college experience in England, I started sharing first with my parents, then with my friends, my intention to leave the country after college, at some point. The strange thing about sharing my goal was that once I started repeating it, I kept getting more certain of the outcome – still without knowing when, where or how. Because of my college experience, the first logical choice was England, or somewhere else in Western Europe. After all, there were a lot of Romanians living abroad in that area, including a few of my friends. My ultimate goal became moving to the United States later in life, after some years in another country or two.

Prosperity Mindset Month - Chapter 4

This month was dedicated to different types of debt that we take on during our life. After we talked about student loans, wedding expenses and mortgages, we will talk about how to plan our monthly budget so we can make sure we pay off all these debts and reach financial serenity.

I know that "budget" is a tough word in Americans' vocabulary. I will endeavor to make it easier for you, my reader, by telling you that by budgeting your money you are not giving up all opportunity for fun and things you desire. You are only planning all your desired purchases and you are also making sure that all your necessities are taken care of. 

I have to agree with the financial experts who tell you to track all your expenses, to the last penny. It is the best way to understand your expenses over a 30-60 day period and to be able to control them afterwards. However, I also have to agree that most of the people (including myself) don't have the patience or the discipline to track every penny spent and to plan where each penny goes. So I have devised a simpler system that has also been sustainable. And I will go over the 3 categories of expenses that I use in my own budgeting:

1. Fixed expenses
This category includes all the payments that are due every month and that have set amounts that cannot be changed, such as: mortgage/rent, insurance payments (all policies: homeowners, car, life, etc), retirement contributions (once you determined how much you contribute), car payment (only after you negotiate the best interest rate available to you), student loan payments, credit card payments (once you negotiate the monthly payments). This is what you must cover every month from your income. You will include all those payments that are a must, and once you have listed them all, you make sure your income goes to them first, before taking care of the next two categories.

2. Flexible expenses
This category includes all the payments necessary every month, that can be negotiated with the companies you have to pay, such as: utility payments (you can control how much electricity, gas or water you use), gas for your car or common transportation (whichever way you need to get around, most of all for work or your business), groceries and any food you eat out (if you have to go out for business meetings), any dues to professional organizations, any other activities that you need to pay for (like children's music and sport activities). 

3. Discretionary expenses
This category is for all the fun spending, such as purses and shoes, or clothes, or any other items you want to collect, as well as vacation money, and money for any other fun family activities. These expenses should not happen before any of the other two categories. I'm not saying to give up all the fun, I'm only saying that these cannot be a priority over the fixed and flexible expenses that you have to take care of every month.

Hope these ideas help you, as you build a better relationship with your money.

Prosperity Mindset Month - Chapter 3

Now that we have talked about your wedding, you are ready to start your new life and probably want what the American Dream is all about: your own house with a white picket fence. Great! Just remember, usually, this house comes with a mortgage - for the next 30 years or so. Most people want to buy a home, so the long commitment to a monthly payment is not a deterrent. 

Most of us sign on the dotted line and agree to the monthly payment without considering what the contract says, the only concern being that the APR is as low as possible, and the monthly payment manageable for the monthly budget. Everyone knows (or can find out) that the APR refers to the annual percentage rate. Though few know that is also influences the monthly payment for the mortgage. By having a smaller APR, your monthly payment will be lower - but have you thought that the amount of total interest is still high, because you pay less on the principal (the borrowed amount)? 

This is why, in order to pay less interest overall, you need to make extra payments, so you reduce the number of years you pay it all off. I know all the financial gurus out there tell you to pay an extra payment a year or to make payments every other week when you get your paycheck, in order to save a lot of interest and pay off your home in less than the 30 years usual mortgage is set up for. This may feel like a tough order if you cannot afford an extra payment annually. Even if that is the case, you may still benefit from this technique if you can pay something extra every month - you may choose to round up your monthly payments to the nearest hundred, or add an extra $50 or $100 each month... whatever fits your budget. Just make sure that you designate the extra payment as going towards the principal, because otherwise it is very likely for it to go towards both interest and principal, and therefore diminish the impact on lowering the amount you owe.

We will be talking about the impact of the interest payment on your taxes for the year in a later post, but for now all I want to emphasize is the benefit of paying off the mortgage earlier than the original schedule. If you can pay the property taxes and the homeowners' insurance separately from the mortgage payments, it will help decrease your monthly payments, so you can pay more - if you can afford to add anything to that payment. A word of caution here: if you make payments for taxes and insurance by yourself, please make sure you plan them into your budget, so you can keep on track. In my experience, your payments will add to less than what the mortgage company charges through the escrow account. 

Next week, we will talk about some budgeting ideas, to help you fit all this into your available money every month.