Top Ten Personal Finance Mistakes - Part 1

Published by Eugene S. Melchionne, Attorney at Law July 30th, 2007 in Personal Finance, Financial Resources on the Web and Connecticut.

Rule #1, Have a personal financial goal and a plan to achieve it. The pressures of bills and getting the income to pay them typically cause you to lose sight of your personal financial goals.

The second thing I ask a new client is, “If I could wave a magic wand to make it happen, where do you want to be in five years?” Or sometimes, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I ask clients this no matter what their age, especially if I sense that they are living without direction. In order to get direction, you have to set a goal and then the path to that goal becomes clearer. It may be too hard to set a lifetime goal, but a five year plan is always achievable. Once you have a five year plan, you can break it down into smaller parts with the short terms goals being something you can achieve in one year or less. Every journey starts with the first step.