Nifty is trading nearly twice as compared to March 2020 levels and still many are thinking about where to invest. This apotheosis explains the lack of personal financial planning among the masses and the importance of strategizing different life and financial goals. Each goal provides you with a disciplined roadmap that can help you get whatever you wish to desire. But the question arises that how to decide your financial goal and the roadmap? So here is one SMART tip for your financial goals.
SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timely designed process developed to help you to achieve desired goals over a specific period. Once, you start practicing SMART you may find that maintaining discipline is the key to achieve all your desires.
Specific
It is very important to be specific towards your goal. For example, I want a car, is a vague term as all cars are not available at the same price or don’t have the same features or design. The characteristics of your goals should be clear so that you can estimate your financial requirements and the time period you require to achieve your goals.
Measurable
Many people romanticize different ways of living their lifestyle with their partners or parents or family. But every fantasy can cost you at least something that you are willing to pay. Therefore, the associated cost should be financially measurable so that you can decide how much you need to plan for and till when you want it.
For example: Buying agricultural land for retirement has some financial value attached to it and some plans like “I want to enjoy after my retirement” doesn’t explain how much you need for your retirement to enjoy.
Achievable
Executing your plans is important so you must work on how you will achieve your financial goals. For attainable goals, one can define multiple sources of income and the period during which he is expecting to achieve his financial goals.
Realistic
A plan to buy a piece of land to build your dream home will sound more achievable than to buy a piece of land on Mars and Moon so that your great-granddaughter/son can live happily there. Your financial goal should be achievable in the given time period and should be feasible to your pocket considering factors like your income and standard of living. Moreover, if you are investing in any growth asset you have to consider the historical data.
Timely designed
Average human life expectancy in India is nearly 69.4 years, and everybody wants to achieve so much that things seem impossible to achieve. However, in-general, people are planning to buy a dream car or a bike or a new house and for these long-term goals, one needs to do appropriate savings.
During this tenure, you keep on investing in different assets like a savings account, FDs, post office saving scheme, etc. so that within a specified duration you can buy what you want. But this seems quite impossible when you add a factor called inflation and with time inflation can badly affect the purchasing power of your money. Therefore, one has to invest in an asset that can beat inflation and hence you can use your money to achieve personal and financial goals.
