I must discuss what happened last night at
the WBW meeting. We had a decent session on calculating your net worth. I had
handouts and gave everyone templates on how to build your own balance sheet
(per household really). But the discussion that ensued from it came right back
to VALUES and subscribing Financial Goals to your values.
This is the part most struggled with, so
the best way for me to illustrate what I meant was to discuss my process from
start to finish and hope you can apply it to yourself. It was a little daunting
as I am a very private person. But when I actually opened up with my process,
the feedback was overwhelmingly fantastic! So a big shout out and thank you to
all the ladies at Tuesday night’s event.
With that being said, I will lay it out on
this blog and hope for the best!
My five values are written on one side of a
post-it note. My husband’s five values are written on the other side. It wasn’t
as easy getting him to do this exercise but I wore him down, as I can be quite
persistent, and we talked about it and gave each other our list in our first
year of marriage. My post-it with both our values is kept in my wallet at all
times. I’ve had it for 8 years now. My 5 values in no particular order are:
Marriage
Family
Personal Growth
Financial Independence
Health
My husbands 5 values are (with permission
from him, of course!):
Health
Marriage
Family
Security
Independence
It’s important to know what your partner
values so that both your goals are aligned. There will be some values you both
share and some you don’t. By knowing them you can help each other stay on track
and it’s easier to make decisions if you know it ultimately takes you as a
couple/family closer towards both your values.
LESSON
1 COMPLETE.
Now we have the difficult part of attaching
financial goals to all of these. This
part takes some thinking and digging and introspection. But fun and productive
and has permanent benefits. I went about it like this:
Marriage
à 1 vacation a year before kids.
à After kids, 1 mini-vacation a year just the 2 of us.
à Date night once a month
Family
à 1-2 family vacations a year. (At least 1 will be with my
parents/brothers’ and their families and we alternate by going to visit my
in-laws who are in Europe/Asia/Australia)
à 1 mother/daughter weekend with my mom. (+ my daughter when she is
older).
à Kids’ post-secondary education to be covered.
I want to iterate that the financial goal
we give to each value is unique to us. It is important to me that if my
children really want to go to a specific university program, that lack of money
not be a barrier in them achieving that goal. If they work hard and get
accepted; money won’t stand in the way.
Health
à Eat well (Less restaurant. Cook more at home)
à Exercise regularly (Gym membership) and home gym set-up
à I hate debt, so the faster we pay off debt the better for my mental
health.
Hope this helps give you some clarity on
the exercise. Now you try it! By Lesson 3 we will be calculating our net worth to
know where we are and how to get to fulfilling our goals and realizing our
values.
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