Your Money_ The Missing Manual - J. D. Roth [15]
After Sabino got married, he and his wife Kim set financial goals. Their chief aim was for Kim to stay home and raise a family. So while their friends were buying homes and new cars, Sabino and Kim rented a mobile home in the country for $200 a month and paid $950 cash for a 1982 Honda Accord. They both worked full-time jobs, but they lived off Sabino's income alone and used Kim's salary to pay off $35,000 in student loans.
"We made sacrifices," Sabino says. "We made these choices because of the goals we had. We knew what we were working for, and we were happy to do it."
Today, Sabino is a successful business owner and Kim stays home to raise their three children, just as they'd planned. Because of their diligence, they now own a nice home in the country and a newer car that's fully paid for. By setting financial goals, staying focused, and making sacrifices, they were able to create the kind of life they'd dreamed about.
Tools and Resources to Help You Achieve Your Goals
Working toward goals isn't always easy. It can be a long slog, and sometimes you'll want to give up. To increase their odds of success, many people find it useful to set up systems to stay on track. This section explains several strategies and tools.
Tip
Positive reinforcement is more effective than negative reinforcement. Studies show that you'll do a better job of reaching your goals if you reward yourself for successes rather than beat yourself up over failures.
Accountability Partners
One of the best ways to stay on track is to find an accountability partner, somebody to share your progress with. You'll want to pair up with someone you can trust and who has a positive outlook. Preferably, she'll be in a financial situation similar to yours and will have similar goals, but that's certainly not a requirement. Sometimes the best accountability partners act as mentors, sharing their knowledge and wisdom.
Some people use their spouses as accountability partners, but that's not always the best choice because emotional baggage can get in the way. Others have success confiding in siblings or close friends. Whoever you pick, make sure it's someone you can trust, since you'll be sharing sensitive financial info.
When you've found an accountability partner:
Discuss your financial situations. Be honest. Make a list of all your debts and account balances. Many people feel awkward about revealing financial data, but if you're not open about your situation, your partner can't do her job.
Share your goals. Explain what you hope to accomplish and why. If you foresee challenges, let your partner know about them.
Schedule monthly reviews. At the end of each month, update each other on your progress. What are your account balances now? Have you made progress toward your goals? What challenges have you faced?
Support each other. The best part of having an accountability partner is that you're in the trenches together, so you can commiserate and encourage each other. But it's also important to speak up when you think your partner is being irresponsible. You're there to help each other achieve financial success, so you need to be honest.
For a real-life example of two sisters who act as accountability partners for each other, check out this article from Get Rich Slowly: http://tinyurl.com/moneypartner.
Web-Based Tools
An accountability partner will help you to stay on track, but she can't always be there for you. She's only human, after all. Sometimes it's useful to get help from a creature that never sleeps: the Internet. A variety of web-based tools can help you meet your goals. Here are a few good ones:
Joe's Goals (www.joesgoals.com) is a simple website for tracking daily goals; it's meant to help you develop new habits. Inspired in part by Benjamin Franklin's 13 virtues (http://tinyurl.com/virtuousben), the site is perfect for reinforcing