You did it!

If you’ve reached this point you’ve:

• Made decision-making easier because you KNOW which part of your financial life is impacted by each decision. If you’re looking at your 401k, for example, you know that it’ll eat cash flow that’ll have to come from somewhere in cornerstone 1, will lower your life insurance need in cornerstone 2, can affect the amount that goes toward short-term goals if you cut them back AND will directly help your ability to retire earlier (cornerstone 4).
• Created a budget based on saving the right amounts toward your goals. Who wants a budget for budget’s sake? Nobody. Now you know where to put each dollar that you save.
• Changed your insurances to better reflect your family’s needs. We had some GREAT conversations on this topic in the Facebook group.
• Either verified your estate plan is up to par or needs work…and you know where to make changes.
• Figured out how to do the math on goal setting (how much you’ll need) AND how to create an investment strategy to meet your goals.

Today we’re going to do some writing.

Homework

1. Prioritize your goals. Based on all the work we’ve done, which goals are most important to you? List them all in order of most/least important. Cross off “goals” that don’t make the cut. You’ll be amazed what happens when you list your goals in order. They become more real.
2. David Chilton from the book The Wealthy Barber, said that a good financial plan should be able to fit on a napkin. This doesn’t mean your entire four cornerstones…that could take a whole piece of paper. However, your plan should fit on a napkin. Will it?  Write your financial plan on a napkin. Want to know what we think about it? Write to me with your plan. I’ll share my thoughts.
3. Describe your investment strategy. Use no more than five sentences. This should include the level of risk you take in your investments. Your risk level should NOT be based on your feelings about losing money! It should be based on what return you need to reach your goal AND the amount you can save (which is informed by your ability to internally “handle” risk).

This is the most powerful day of the class. If you do this right, you’ll know just how far you’ve come! I’m excited to see what you’ve done!