Three financial goals you can accomplish in the first three months of 2020

It can be easy to avoid thinking about long-term goals like retirement, especially when the benefits of long-term planning seem far away from our daily lives. Breaking down those distant goals into smaller, more approachable goals that we can tackle right away make them more manageable. This incremental planning can help us get to where we want to be without feeling overwhelmed.

After all, the sooner we start planning, the better our results will be — meaning now is the perfect time to make a plan and get started. Here are three financial goals you can accomplish in the first three months of 2020 that will help set you up for a successful decade.

Calculate how much money you need for retirement

If you don’t know where you’re going, how are you going to get there? When it comes to saving for retirement, the fundamental logic is simple: understanding how much you need to save, and you can plan successfully. Keeping a specific figure in mind can help make it far more likely that you start saving towards your retirement.

A financial planner can provide a retirement calculator sheet and help you to estimate what you need to save. Most major banks also have simple online calculators that can offer serious advice in just a few minutes. You can find similar calculators online at The Retirement Cash Flow Calculator, an educational website run by the Ontario Securities Commission, or the federal government’s Canadian Retirement Income Calculator.

Whichever tool you use, achieving step one can help motivate you to achieve step two and three — and keep you on the path to prioritizing retirement savings.

Make a budget that focuses on your goals

Budgeting aims to help us avoid debt and create savings. Simple, right? It might seem so, but that doesn’t mean plenty of us avoid creating a serious budget, let alone stick to it year after year. A little extra spending here and there makes the whole process easier, but too many of these small indulgences can wreak havoc on your planning in the long-term.

Having a budget that is focused on meaningful goals can help take the sting out of the small daily sacrifices we make in order to save. A budget that prioritizes goals involves determining what matters most to you, estimating how much money you need to reach your goals, and making a plan for how to get there. Let this be the year you stop thinking of a budget as an obstruction and start using it as fuel for your future.

Create a debt elimination schedule

No matter how successfully you budget, it will be extremely difficult to achieve all of your goals while carrying debt. That’s because interest charges on things like loans and credit cards eat up your cash flow. Making sure your payments go through on time is an essential part of any successful budget.

If you have trouble keeping track of your bills and bill payments, use a bill payment app like Paytm. It’s simple to set up automatic payments through the mobile app using a variety of methods — including using Paytm Cash, Credit Cards, Debit Cards or your Linked Bank Account — so you never miss a payment. Plus, you can get rewarded for paying your bills: when you download their app, you’ll collect 2,000 points just for signing up and verifying your account.

Work your debt payments into your budget tracker and be realistic about how much you can pay down each month. You may have to sacrifice some luxuries in the short term, but you will have more money in the long run.

Tackling your finances in small but manageable steps can steer you toward a successful financial future — and you don’t need a degree in finance to do it. Just start with a few simple goals, then make a plan and follow it. Make this year your year.