Financial Resiliency Series - 2024 Planning, how to set yourself up for success

Now that you’ve taken a look back on the good, the bad and the ugly that was 2023 it’s time to take those learnings into your 2024 planning. This type of planning is how I’ve found success on the financial front and I’m sure that you will too. Let’s set ourselves up for success by setting some SMART goals and draw out the tactical plans that will describe how we will achieve these goals.

This is not about making New Year’s resolutions, but rather to set the stage for a prosperous and successful year ahead.

SMART Goals

No 2024 planning article would be complete without a refresher on what SMART goals are as this is a proven strategy for success.

S. Specific: Well-defined, clear and unambiguous

M. Measurable: With specific criteria that measure your progress toward the accomplishment of the goal

A. Achievable: Attainable and not impossible to achieve

R. Relevant: Help you to achieve your dream

T. Timely: With a clearly defined timeline, including a starting date and a target end date – This creates a sense of urgency.

Forbes wrote a great article on SMART goals, it’s worth a read if you feel you need a little more information.

Short/Medium/Long Goals

The idea is that you’re making a 1-year plan here. So these would be short-term goals. One thing to consider is how much you can realistically achieve in a year’s time. Sometimes your goals will be a smaller part of a larger medium or long-term goal.

For example, saving for retirement is most people’s longest term goal but they won’t get there if they wait until the year before they want to say sayonara to their employer if they want to have enough saved for their dream retirement. Because of this, we want to make shorter goals that add up towards a full retirement goal. If you know that you’ll earn $75K this year and your expenses will be $55K, then you could save the remaining $20K of that towards your retirement this year. This would be added to what’s already in your retirement accounts and so on each year until you have enough. You get the gist.

For the purpose of this exercise we are focusing on short-term goals only (while knowing that some will play into longer term goals).

Start drafting your 2024 plan

I’m hoping that a few goals rose to the surface during the 2023 review exercise that you hopefully recently engaged in. If you haven’t, take a few minutes to start here.

Now, jot down a few ideas to start, then review this list to see if any others will apply this year and should be added. I start pretty rough, then fine tune them with actual numbers once I decide which areas I’ll be focusing on each year.

How many goals do you need? I find that selecting no more than 3-5 goals each year increases my success rate so even though there are 20 examples provided below, just select those that you think will do the most good based on your current situation (or make your own).

Of course, your goals will be different than mine and different than those around you. If you have a spouse or partner, make sure to include them in this exercise.

20 Examples of Financial Goals

Pay off credit cards in full.
Pay off any higher interest debt (car loan, RV/boat loan, student loan, etc.)
Start tracking net worth and spending on a regular basis (I recommend weekly)
Save your first $1,000
Save 6 months of spending in an emergency fund
Reduce spending on TV subscriptions by only using one at a time (or finally cut the cable cord)
Negotiate lower rates with your recurring bill suppliers like cellular, internet, home and car insurance, or find new suppliers with better rates
Open a TFSA (or the equivalent from your country) if you don’t already have one and start depositing $XX monthly
Open an RRSP (or the equivalent from your country) and start depositing $XX monthly
Open an RESP to start saving for your children’s post-secondary education
Build or update your Will
Review your Insurance needs and adjust as necessary
Reduce your spending on dining out to X meals per month
Save $XX towards the downpayment of a home (or investment property)
Increase your income by $XX
Plan for fun – save towards your next big vacation
Improve financial literacy – read books, listen to podcasts
Research no-fee banking solutions and make the switch
Save up $XX to purchase [insert item of choice here] in cash
DIY prep and paint your living room for a low cost refresh

Make them SMART Goals

Once you’ve selected your 3-5 goals, it’s time to turn them into SMART goals so that you can action them in your 2024 plan.

For example, if you’ve stated that you’d like to increase your income, you’ll need to consider and add:

Specific: How will you do this (negotiating higher pay with your current employer, looking for a new job, starting or growing your side hustle)
Measurable: How much would you like to increase it by?
Attainable: Make sure that this is reasonable – but you’ll still have to work towards it so it’s a stretch goal but still one that you can reasonably attain
Relevant: Well, yes of course this would be relevant if you’re looking at financial goals
Timely: When will you start to take action? When do you hope to be complete?

Celebrate with Deb C’s 2024 Financial Plan

So that you can see a more fulsome example, here is what my plan includes for 2024. Keep in mind that my situation will be different than yours but it will hopefully inspire you to build and your own.

I will say that I’m in the solid financial position that I’m in now because I’ve been doing these review/planning exercises for many years.

GOAL #1 / Earn enough via contracting and other income generating methods that will mitigate any need for drawing down our emergency fund. Our base spending is approximately $2,800 per month so this means that I’ll have to clear $33,600 after income taxes to achieve this. This will require ongoing commitment to both the companies that I’m contracting with and to growing and monetizing the blog.

Tactics:

Keep spending at current levels or lower
Stay on top of contract work and ensure accurate and timely invoicing
Consistent effort on the blog, producing 2 articles per week and promoting every day to grow traffic

GOAL #2 / Drop dining out and ordering takeout spending from $250 per month to $100 or lower every month starting in January. Since I’ll be working from home and with greater flexibility, this is achievable with more time and energy resources available for planning/shopping and meal prepping.

Tactics:

Always have quick meals on hand for busy days by batch cooking our favorites
More regularly cook some of the meals that we really enjoy dining out or ordering in like burgers, Thai, pizza, spicy chicken strips
Meal plan and grocery shop weekly to ensure fresh ingredients are on hand for cooking/baking
Remove the Skip app from my phone

GOAL #3 / Grow and Monetize the Blog by strategically upskilling to increase traffic in Q1, then actioning ad and affiliate streams in Q2.

Tactics:

Q1 – Take courses on writing, keyword research, SEO, Pinterest, Meta, GTM, GA4 – at least 30-minutes each weekday evening
All year – Write, publish and promote 2 articles each week
Q2 – Research and select an ad partner
Q2 – Research and select initial affiliate partner(s)
Q3/4 – Create a lead generator, adjust site to accommodate and start e-marketing 2x per month

While there are plenty of other areas that I’d like to focus on, I suspect that these three will keep me more than busy this year. I’m sure you can see how our goals will be different as they absolutely should be.

No matter what goals you’ve set for yourself this year, I sure hope that you’ll take a moment, take a deep breath in and celebrate just for a moment that you have taken the time and effort to build a plan at all.

Now we have 12 whole months to action our 2024 plans so it’s time to get to work!

I wish you all the very best for a successful 2024. Stay tuned for more articles in this series as I take you through the steps that we’ve taken to move us from financially dependent only a few years ago to the great position that we’re in today.

Curate the life you want by taking the steps you need to today.