Reassessing and Monitoring your Financial Goals

Labels: Goals, Net worth, Strategy on Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at July 05, 2011

I am a Money Magnet! We are Money Magnets!

The first half of the year just ended and we enter the second half with a lot of optimism. The Philippine Stock Exchange Index (PSEi) ended the first half strongly and it just closed on a new all-time high at 4421.56 on July 4, 2011. Our GDP growth is moderate and inflation seems to be well contained. PSEi is gaining momentum and is looking to head towards the 5,000 level in the next 6 months.

During this time of the year, Mutual Fund and UITF managers release investment reports which give you a snapshot of how your investments performed over the first half of the year. In the same manner, individual investors, including us, Money Magnets, must evaluate and monitor our financial goals and reassess our strategies into achieving these goals. In this regard, we suggest using the WINS Strategy as formulated by Mr. Jun Gomez of Wealth Bulb, Inc. It is simple and easy to remember. Read on to know more about this method.

We first encountered this strategy way back in June of 2009 when Mr. Gomez appeared in ANC's Shop Talk. You can read the full post about it here.

Just to recap, WINS stands for the following steps:
W - Where are you at?
I- Investigate
N - Numerical Goals
S - Strategy

In the first step, we must compute for our current net worth in order for us to know how much we have. This is crucial to knowing how far you are to reaching your goals. The next step is to analyze and investigate your sources of income and your expenses. In essence, you are trying to figure out how money enters and leaves your hands - this is examining your cash flow. The third step is to set a numerical goal. This goal is how much you want your net worth to be given a specific period of time. While your goal needs to be realistic, it would be good to aim high as well. This way you are encouraged to strive harder just to achieve that goal. And finally, the last step is to come up with a strategy on how to achieve your goals given the limited time frame you've set. This can etiher involve risking more and investing in vehicles that can provide higher gains or simply cutting out on expenses and saving more to increase the money you save every month.

One of us stated that his goal for a year was to double his net worth! And the strategy he imposed on himself was to take more risk and invest a big portion of his portfolio in equity-based investments. Based on our previous conversations, we believe he only has 6 months left to achieve this goal. However, with the Equity markets seemingly shifting to higher gears and getting ready to soar ahead, this guy might just achieve his goals with the right choice of investments! In any case, if you don't achieve your goals and end up with only around an increase of 30-50%, that's still quite an achievement for a single year of investing!

Good luck to us all Money Magnets! And keep on attracting Wealth!

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