Day 26:       Take the Long Term Goal and Plan Backwards.

    Well, this is a lot more complex, isn’t it?  Yes and no.  It is a longer time frame but the principles are the same. 

    Achieving a goal is a matter of breaking the goal into smaller, manageable steps and tracking your progress.  There is a reason why Weight Watchers makes you weigh in EVERY WEEK.  You are tracking progress and if you start to backslide, you can do something about it when you have gained back two pounds which is a whole lot easier than having to stop the backslide when you have gained back ten pounds. 

    So take your long term goal and picture the things you will need to have in place to accomplish it.  Maybe it is learning a new language or paying for a family vacation with cash. 

    If a family vacation is going to cost $5,000 and you have a year to plan it, you know you need to save up a little over $400 a month over the next 12 months.  That is $100 a week.  Sounds easy already, doesn’t it?  But most families are living paycheck to paycheck and they probably have ten different places that $100 could go every week.  Which is why you have to focus on what you want.

    There are dozens of different ways you can make $100 extra a week. Sometimes just tracking where your money goes will save that much. Some people can skip going out to dinner one night a week and save $50 or more right there.  You might take on a part-time job.  Or kick off your vacation fund by having a giant garage sale. 

    Set up a schedule.  At the end of month 12, you should have $5,000 in the bank.  You may want to put $400 a month in there on a regular schedule.  Or you may want to start off with a larger amount (say you made $1,000 on your garage sale) and put $500 a month in so you are sure you have the money in time.  Maybe you get a part-time job that pays $10 an hour to start and then you move up to $12 an hour in three months.  You may put $350 in the first three months and $450 in each month after that.  Set up the schedule that works for you. 

    But also set your benchmarks.  If you reach month six and you only have $1,500 you are two and a half months behind schedule (already!) and you are not going on vacation.  If you had checked your benchmarks at months two, three, four and five, you would have corrected the deficit before it became so large and possibly insurmountable.

    So take your long-term goal and break it into smaller, quantifiable steps.  Remember, these steps are not set in stone.  They are there to help you get started.  You may need to adjust them along the way.  Remember your Confucious:   “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”