3 Steps to Help You Accomplish Short-Term Financial Goals

It’s helpful to have financial goals. For those goals that you want to achieve within a year or two, the time is now to get things in motion. Here are some ways you can set yourself up for short-term goal success.

1. Create or Revise Your Budget

How to Create a Budget

If you don’t have a budget, create one right away. You can use any number of budgeting apps to help you get started. You can also do it the old-fashioned way and simply create a spreadsheet. The important thing is that you need to start with a budget. You’ll have a hard time making savings goals without a budget. With a budget in place, you can see where your money is going. That means you’ll be able to easily funnel it to your short-term goal.

Revising Your Budget

If you have a budget, go through it and revise it. Cut down on unnecessary spending and add that money to your savings, which will eventually be used to achieve your goal. 

2. Start an Emergency Fund

Make sure you have an emergency fund in place just in case you run into a financial hiccup on the way to your short-term goal. You can start small, but the point is to get started. You eventually want to have enough saved to cover six months of fixed expenses. 

3. Pay Down Debts

Create a plan to pay down your debts. You can use the snowball method or the avalanche method. Pick the one that best works for you. You don’t want to be dealing with high-interest debt when trying to reach your short-term financial goal.

Do One Thing: Use a budgeting app to either create or revise your budget.