6 tips for reaching your financial goals

Setting financial goals is an important step in achieving them, but it’s also important to have a plan and ongoing guidance and accountability. Whether you want to upgrade your home, take a dream vacation or increase your retirement contributions, writing your goals down, creating detailed financial strategies and systematically saving can help set you on a path to success.

An Ameriprise financial advisor can help you develop a strategy to reach your financial goals and stay on track to reach them, all while helping you balance other financial priorities.

Here are six tips for setting — and achieving — your financial goals:

1. Be specific and realistic

The more specific you are with your goals, the more likely you are to achieve them. Being precise and detailed with your goal-setting — such as assigning numbers and a timeline to your goals — makes it easier to identify a clear plan of action. For example, “saving for retirement” is a commendable financial goal but may be too broad to be effective. Instead, consider something like “maxing out my contributions to my 401(k) and Roth IRA by the end of the year,” which has specific targets and a deadline attached to it.

Being realistic with your financial goals is also important to your success. For example, paying off a $30,000 student loan in three months may not be feasible, but applying an extra $500 to your principal balance every month, and setting a target loan payoff date, may be a manageable, concrete step you can take to help reach your goal faster. 

How your Ameriprise financial advisor can help: They can help you define and clarify your financial goals so that they are precise, measurable and within your reach.

2. Document your goals

The process of documenting your goals encourages you to think about specifics, making your goals clear and actionable rather than vague. Further, seeing your goals written down can serve as a reminder of your commitment, boosting your motivation, especially during challenging times.

How an Ameriprise financial advisor can help: They can help you document, prioritize, modify and track your financial goals in the secure site on ameriprise.com, so that you can conveniently access them when you need encouragement.

3. Create a detailed financial strategy

After you have specific, realistic financial goals documented, you need a plan of action to help reach them. This financial strategy should be detailed and consider multiple factors, including:

• How you will save: You not only need to determine the total amount you need to save, but how you will go about saving for it. For example, you could implement a systematic savings plan to incrementally reach your financial targets. Or perhaps, it may be more efficient and faster to redirect irregular income infusions (from a bonus or commission, for example) to reach your goal.
• Where you will save: Consider which type of vehicle is appropriate for your goal, given your time horizon and risk tolerance. For example, a high-interest savings account may be a good option if you need liquidity, while an investment account may be a better fit if growth is a priority.
• Tax implications: Certain investment and savings accounts are also granted special tax advantages by the IRS, so you’ll want to weigh the pros and cons of leveraging those vehicles.

How your Ameriprise financial advisor can help: They can create a financial strategy that is personalized to your financial goals, time horizon and unique needs.

4. Automate, where possible

You’ve likely heard the phrase, “Set it and forget it.” That philosophy can be applied to meeting your financial goals with automatic money transfers that put saving, investing and making payments on autopilot. Whether you’re investing for retirement, saving for a house down payment or paying off debt, regularly scheduled transfers directly from your paycheck or between bank accounts remove the effort of manually moving money around yourself. This makes it easier to stay on track — and avoid spending the money you’ve earmarked for your goals. 

How an Ameriprise financial advisor can help: They can help facilitate these automatic transfers, including determining the appropriate amount to systematically save, as well as the frequency of transactions.

5. Regularly review your progress

Setting aside regular time in your calendar to review wins and challenges can help keep you accountable to your financial goals. If you have a shorter time horizon, you may decide to review your progress monthly, while an annual review may suffice for a longer time horizon. Whatever cadence you decide on, regular evaluations of your progress can help keep you motivated, while also providing you an opportunity to course-correct and make enhancements to your strategy, if necessary.

How your Ameriprise financial advisor can help: They can schedule regular check-ins to assess your progress, as well as identify potential opportunities to adjust and meet your desired financial goals faster.

6. Get professional help

Sometimes you need a partner to help you reach your goals — and your financial goals are no exception. Enlisting the help of a financial professional in your pursuit means you not only gain an accountability partner, but you also receive advice that’s personalized to your financial goals, time horizon and risk tolerance.

How your Ameriprise financial advisor can help: They can help you every step of the way as you pursue your goals, from defining your objectives and determining how much to save to overseeing your progress and helping you stay on track. They can also help you balance your other financial priorities and identify potential opportunities to meet your goals faster. If you haven’t already, reach out to an Ameriprise financial advisor to get started on setting — and sticking to — your financial goals.