Happy New Year, and many blessings!
Many of you know that January is my favourite time for finances – the time when we make our plan for the year ahead. It’s filled with the excitement of possibility.
Will it work out the way we planned? I don’t know, but it seems much more likely that we will get where we want to go if we take some time to map out the journey first!
Making a plan for the upcoming year is something that my husband and I have done for many years, and even though our finances should be completely unpredictable, we have found that by the end of the year, we have always wound up within 2% of what we had planned. Last week I received an email from a self-employed friend who had decided to set an income target for herself last year – really on a lark, because a friend was doing it. She was thrilled, on December 31st, to find that she had achieved her high goal.
Aside from income, a plan also lets us map out our expenses, and make sure that everything will fit. What do you want to do this year? Are there any special projects or trips that you would like? This is the time to create a vision for your year. Creating a plan sets a powerful intention, and it serves as a “container” to gently hold us in the place we want to be. Without this intention, money can tend to leak away in different directions.
Let me know if you would like to make a plan for 2016, and let’s schedule a time to put together a map for your year.
I also have some exciting on-line classes coming up in the next couple of months:
“Money 101 for Young Professionals” starts February 16th. This class is designed specifically for young adults in the working world, approximately age 22 to 30. It covers the basics of personal finance, how to make and track a budget, manage student loans, save for down-payments, and start saving for retirement. I will also collect a list of any other topics that each participant would like me to include. This class is limited to 8 participants, and there is a 10% discount for early registration by February 7th.
“Out in the World” is for youth and young adults from high school seniors to age 21, and starts March 3rd. It will cover money basics, and how to use finances to define life goals and help follow them. As always, a questionnaire before class will collect the topics that participants would like me to address. There is a bring-a-friend discount: sign up with a friend, and both receive $10 off!
More details on both of these are on my website, and if you would like to register, just drop me an email. Also, please do forward this to anyone else you know who might be interested.
Originally published January 2016