Listen Now

Should I do my own taxes or hire a professional? is a question that doesnt get asked as much as it should. Get my advice on best practices based on my experience at the Internal Revenue Service. Topics Discussed In This Episode When its probably OK to file your taxes on your own Common mistakes that people make Advice on tax software When to hire a professional and how to find one Push Play! Links and Resources Mentioned: TaxACT Software Search for an Enrolled Agent Search for a Certified Public Accountant andnbsp; *     *     *     *     * Want to get all new episodes delivered directly to your favorite device? Please subscribe (for free!) to your preferred method below: If youd like to use a method that isnt listed above, you can grab the RSS feed here. After listening to the show, please leave some honest feedback on iTunes by clicking here. Leaving feedback will help the show expand. This means additional questions to help you expand your knowledge! Thanks for listening! Transcript Please check out this article!

Chris asks, Should I sign my credit card? Ive seen people not sign them at all or even write See ID on the back. Whats the right way? Find out the best practices when signing your credit or debit cards! Push Play! Links and Resources Mentioned: Terms and Conditions for a VISA Card (on the second page, look at the third paragraph) Story About The Post Office Policy andnbsp; *     *     *     *     * Want to get all new episodes delivered directly to your favorite device? Please subscribe (for free!) to your preferred method below: If youd like to use a method that isnt listed above, you can grab the RSS feed here. After listening to the show, please leave some honest feedback on iTunes by clicking here. Leaving feedback will help the show expand. This means additional questions to help you expand your knowledge! Thanks for listening! Transcript Hey there, welcome to another episode of Ten 10 Minute Money Tips. I am your host, Adam Hagerman, and we are now officially on episode #13. Before we get into today’s question, I did want to mention there’s been a couple of changes to how you can submit a question. It’s actually much easier now. Be sure to listen to the end of today’s podcast to find out how to get to your question in. Now on to today’s question, it comes in from Chris and he writes “should I sign the back of my credit card? I’ve seen people not sign them at all or even write the words ‘see ID’ on the back. What’s the right way? Well Chris, many people believe that by not signing the back of their card, it will actually prevent fraud. What they’re thinking is that if somebody stole their wallet and took their credit cards and they had signed the back of the card, that thief would now have a perfect copy of their signature and be able to open up all kinds of different things by using that signature. It’s an odd type of thought process there and I’ll talk about why I think it’s odd in a second but the first thing I want to talk about is that by not signing the back of your card, you’re actually breaking the rules, I guess you could say, of the credit card company that you’re using because most credit card companies in their terms and conditions say that if you do not sign the back of your credit card, it’s actually not valid. I actually pulled out a couple of my credit cards from my wallet and there’s actually a phrase on most of them or actually all of them that says “not valid unl

Leslie asks, With many different methods to pay down debt, which one is the best and why? Find out which method I recommend most to my clients! Push Play! Links and Resources Mentioned: 8 Steps To Financial Freedom Create Your Battle Plan For Eliminating Debt (a Review of the Methods) How Long Will It Take to Eliminate Your Debt? (Debt Elimination Calculator) andnbsp; *     *     *     *     * Want to get all new episodes delivered directly to your favorite device? Please subscribe (for free!) to your preferred method below: If youd like to use a method that isnt listed above, you can grab the RSS feed here. After listening to the show, please leave some honest feedback on iTunes by clicking here. Leaving feedback will help the show expand. This means additional questions to help you expand your knowledge! Thanks for listening! Transcript Hello there! Welcome to episode 12 of 10 Minute Money Tips. I am your host, Adam, and today’s question is actually by email. It came in from Leslie. I asked her if she could possibly call in and ask it on the air but she’s a little shy so I’m just going to read the email question to you. And it goes like this. She says “I’m at the point where I’m attempting to eliminate my debt. How do you recommend paying it down? I’ve heard of several different methods but how do I know which one is best?” And Leslie you’re right. There are many different types of methods that you could pay down debt. I mean there are a lot of people just kind of pay above the minimum on everything and kind of throw a little bit of money here, throw a little bit of money there. That can be a little confusing and it kind of feels like you’re not getting anywhere. That’s why some of these other methods that I’m about ready to talk about kind of were created or thought about. One of those methods is the lowest balance method. Some people call this the snowball method but I refer to it as the lowest balance method because it kind of gives you an idea of what it actually is. And what you do with that is you actually list your debts from lowest balance to highest balance. Pay the minimum on all of your debts except the one with the lowest balance. Throw all the extra money that you have from your budget on a monthly basis, anything that’s left over, throw it on that top debt and aggressively pay it down. And once that debt’s paid off, you kind of roll that money, that extra money down to the second

On this episode of 10 Minute Money Tips, Greg asks, I got a new job and am wondering what to do with my old 401(k). Is my only option to keep it at my old employer if I dont want to pay taxes? Topics Discussed In This Episode Keeping the 401(k) at the old company Rolling the old 401(k) into your new employers retirement plan Rolling the old 401(k) into a Traditional or Roth IRA Cashing out the old 401(k) (HINT: This is my least favorite option!) Push Play! Links and Resources Mentioned: Betterment (simple, low-cost investing) Vanguard (low-cost mutual fund company) Fidelity (low-cost mutual fund company) Charles Schwab (low-cost brokerage firm) 401(k) to Roth IRA Conversion Rules andnbsp; *     *     *     *     * Want to get all new episodes delivered directly to your favorite device? Please subscribe (for free!) to your preferred method below: If youd like to use a method that isnt listed above, you can grab the RSS feed here. After listening to the show, please leave some honest feedback on iTunes by clicking here. Leaving feedback will help the show expand. This means additional questions to help you expand your knowledge! Thanks for listening! Transcript Hey there stranger! Welcome to episode #11 of 10 Minute Money Tips. I’ve actually got a good question for you this week. It comes in from Greg and has to do with a 401(k). Take it away, Greg. “Hey Adam, this is Greg. I just recently took a new job and have some money in a 401(k) with my old employer. I just want to know what my options are with that money. I don’t want to pay taxes. Is my only option to leave the money with my old company? I appreciate it.” Hey Greg, great question, one that actually is a lot more common these days because it seems that people really don’t stay with one employer as they kind of used to. Back in the day, people would stay on for an employer for their entire career, but with a lot of turnover and switching of jobs these days; this is actually a very common question. You’ll be happy to know that you actually have a few options to move that money that will result in no taxes. And that first option is kind of what you already alluded to and that is keeping the money in the old 401(k) and that’s if your previous employer allows it. Some employers don’t allow you to keep the money there. Sometimes if you don’t have more in there than the certain threshold that they require, it might be $3000 or $5000, if you don

On this episode of 10 Minute Money Tips, I address a question that Ive been getting asked a lot lately - How to I budget for unexpected expenses? Topics Discussed In This Episode Why its important to start anticipating these unexpected expenses. How using an annual budget can help you plan. Why creating a new budget each month is crucial to your success. How creating carryover categories helps you plan. Using separate savings accounts to trick yourself into saving. The importance of an emergency fund and defining TRUE financial emergencies. How to analyze each expense and act rationally. Push Play! Links and Resources Mentioned: Ally Bank Annual Budget Template Monthly Budget Template (Paying on Debt) Monthly Budget Template (No Debt) Create a Budget Youll Stick With in 8 Steps Have a Small Emergency Fund Before Starting to Attack Your Debt andnbsp; *     *     *     *     * Want to get all new episodes delivered directly to your favorite device? Please subscribe (for free!) to your preferred method below: If youd like to use a method that isnt listed above, you can grab the RSS feed here. After listening to the show, please leave some honest feedback on iTunes by clicking here. Leaving feedback will help the show expand. This means additional questions to help you expand your knowledge! Thanks for listening! Transcript Hello my friend! Welcome to episode 10 of 10 Minute Money Tips. What I want to talk about today is actually it’s based off of a question that I get asked quite often and a lot of it comes from the newsletter that I send out, my free newsletter, which you can actually subscribe to by going to tmmt.co/newsletter and a lot of those questions come back with the same one and it’s this – how do I handle unexpected expenses. It appears that a lot of people want to get their finances in order, probably you as well, and it always seems that right when things are starting to look good, there’s always some sort of unexpected expense, whether that’s kid’s field trips, some family comes into town, etc, there’s always something that seems to just kind of set you back every month and I want to talk to you about those expenses today and kind of how to deal with them. The first thing I want to talk about is just plainly anticipating them. A lot of the expenses that many people, including yourself, may feel are unexpected expenses are actually the opposite. They are expected expenses. You just don

On this episode of 10 Minute Money Tips, Dave says, Ive started putting money into a dependent care spending account (FSA) at work. How does that benefit me and is there anything I need to be careful about? Topics Discussed In This Episode The difference between a health care FSA and a dependent care FSA How much you can put into the account and how that affects your income taxes What kind of expenses qualify for reimbursement Things that you should consider before putting money into a flexible spending account Difference between the dependent care FSA and the dependent care tax credit and which one is best for your situation Push Play! Links and Resources Mentioned: IRS Publication 503 - Child and Dependent Care Expenses FAQs on the Federal Governments FSA Program (not all information will apply to you, but you can get a better understanding of an FSA) Dependent Care FSA vs. Tax Credit Calculator andnbsp; *     *     *     *     * Want to get all new episodes delivered directly to your favorite device? Please subscribe (for free!) to your preferred method below: If youd like to use a method that isnt listed above, you can grab the RSS feed here. After listening to the show, please leave some honest feedback on iTunes by clicking here. Leaving feedback will help the show expand. This means additional questions to help you expand your knowledge! Thanks for listening! Transcript What’s up my friend? Welcome and thanks for joining me today for episode 9 of 10 Minute Money Tips. I do want to apologize in advance today, possibly. There’s a huge pot hole right outside my window and unfortunately every single car that seems to be going by seems to be hitting it and it’s kind of shaking my entire house. If you hear a big thud in the middle of my podcast today, just know that it’s some car running over a big pot hole somewhere. I apologize in advance. Today’s question comes from Dave. It’s kind of tax related so it may not apply to some of you but it may and hopefully the information that I give you today is beneficial to you. Here you go. Here’s the question. Take it away, Dave. “Hey Adam! My name is Dave. I’ve been listening to your show since episode 1. Thanks so much for a great show and also your willingness to take questions from your listening community. My question, it’s kind of a specific one but I think maybe others might benefit from it too. For a number of years my wife and I have been using

On this episode of 10 Minute Money Tips, Rebecca asks, What questions should I ask myself before loaning money to family? Push Play! Links and Resources Mentioned: 8 Steps to Financial Freedom The Kick-Start Your Finances Giveaway andnbsp; *     *     *     *     * Want to get all new episodes delivered directly to your favorite device? Please subscribe (for free!) to your preferred method below: If youd like to use a method that isnt listed above, you can grab the RSS feed here. After listening to the show, please leave some honest feedback on iTunes by clicking here. Leaving feedback will help the show expand. This means additional questions to help you expand your knowledge! Thanks for listening! Transcript What is up? Thanks so much for joining me this week for episode 8 of 10 Minute Money Tips. So let’s actually jump into today’s question now and it comes from Rebecca. “Hello. My name is Rebecca Schultz and I had a quick question about loaning money to family. I have a brother who’s starting a business and he needs to borrow money to get it off the ground. He hasn’t asked me specifically for the money but I’m thinking about loaning it to him. Are there any questions that I should be asking myself before committing to loan him money? Thanks for your help.” Thank you for the question, Rebecca. It’s a really good one. Let me first say that I like that you’re thinking about loaning the money and I like that you’re also contemplating, thinking about some questions that you should be asking because there are some questions that you should be asking and I’ll get into them in a second, but I will also say that a lot of these questions that I’m going to talk about here apply whether you’re loaning money to a family member or even a friend. The first question that you should be asking yourself is “what’s the risk?” In other words, are they having trouble seeking traditional lending? Is he having problems borrowing money from the bank, utilizing the credit card to start to business? I’m not saying that he should do that, but is he having problems finding money for that? If he is, you should really be questioning if you should even loan him the money because that probably means he doesn’t have good credit. He doesn’t pay people back. Are you okay with the possibility that he may not pay you back. The second question you should be asking is are you okay classifying this money as gift? Because

Robert asks, After you become debt free, how do you make sure you remain debt free? Push Play! Links and Resources Mentioned: 8 Steps to Financial Freedom Ill Buy That For You! I Get Double Reward Points! Fatten Up the Piggy Bank Before Attacking Your Debt  andnbsp; *     *     *     *     * Want to get all new episodes delivered directly to your favorite device? Please subscribe (for free!) to your preferred method below: If youd like to use a method that isnt listed above, you can grab the RSS feed here. After listening to the show, please leave some honest feedback on iTunes by clicking here. Leaving feedback will help the show expand. This means additional questions to help you expand your knowledge! Thanks for listening! Transcript Hey what’s up my friend? Welcome to episode 7 of 10 Minute Money Tips. Let’s jump right into the question, comes from Robert. “Hey Adam! My name’s Robert and my question for you is basically how do you stay out of debt once you are debt-free? In my case, I was debt-free about 10 years ago. My wife and I spent a lot of time, a lot of effort, to get out of debt. She was pregnant with our first child and I think it just hit us that we really needed to do this now before we had our first child. So we did, got rid of all the student loan and everything except the house basically. We moved to a new city, we got a new house. We put it on a 15-year mortgage, not off the bat but after a couple of revise we got it on to a 15-year and because of my work I got a credit card to pay for travel and expenses and over the course of 10 years we would just put something on that credit card that we couldn’t afford or we couldn’t pay out of our emergency fund; mostly repairs, the cars, and just kind of life stuff that comes up. In the end of 10 years, not being laser focused on staying out of debt, we kind of just ease back into $3000 or $4000 worth of debt on the credit card and it’s kind of a bum to look up and think ‘God, we were out of debt but we’re not anymore.’ It’s not a lot of money but it’s more than I would like to have. I’m just wondering if you had any tips on how to stay out of debt once you are debt free. I love what you’re doing with the show and I wish you all the best. Thanks, bye-bye.” Thanks for the kind words, Robert. I greatly appreciate it and thanks for the great question. What you’re struggling with is probably what a lot of people are struggling with as

Wynne asks, Should we use savings to pay off debt or continue to pay over the minimum payment and start saving for retirement? Push Play! Links and Resources Mentioned: 8 Steps to Financial Freedom Kick-Start Your Finances Giveaway (Worth Over $1,400!) andnbsp; *     *     *     *     * Want to get all new episodes delivered directly to your favorite device? Please subscribe (for free!) to your preferred method below: If youd like to use a method that isnt listed above, you can grab the RSS feed here. After listening to the show, please leave some honest feedback on iTunes by clicking here. Leaving feedback will help the show expand. This means additional questions to help you expand your knowledge! Thanks for listening! Transcript Hey what’s up? Welcome to episode 6 of 10 Minute Money Tips. As I mentioned last week, the questions are now coming from you, the listener. And we have our first one today and it actually comes from Winnie, so take it away Winnie. “Hi Adam! I have a question for you regarding student loans and investments. My husband and I are in our late 20s and we have not yet started saving for retirement. Instead, we’ve been earmarking extra funds towards our student loans and we’ve been able to pay them down, so we have a little less than $8000 left. We are wondering, should we pay them off in full, because we have about double that amount in our savings, or should we continue to pay above the monthly requirement and set aside separate funds to start investing in retirement. How should we prioritize where our money goes? Thanks.” Thanks so much for your question, Winnie. That’s a great one, one I get asked actually quite often to be honest with you. And before I get in to my response, let me first say that you guys are doing some awesome work so far, that much savings as well as paying extra on the student loans. That shows me that you guys are committed to getting out of debt and bettering your finances. Great job. Now to get into my response, I’m actually going to go back to episode 1 of this podcast where I talk about the 8 steps to financial freedom. If you can recall, I created the 8 steps to financial freedom to really help people focus on one thing at a time, to not get overwhelmed by considering too many decisions and that’s kind of seems where you’re stuck right now. And if you can go back to the 8 steps to financial freedom, let’s just go through them quickly. Step 1 is setting

How much do I need to save for retirement? Should I save for retirement while in debt? Find out these answers and more in the fifth episode of 10 Minute Money Tips. Push Play! Links and Resources Mentioned: How Starting to Save Early Can Make You Rich Pursuit of a Financial Advisor Field Guide National Association of Personal Financial Advisors Certified Financial Planners Garrett Planning Network andnbsp; *     *     *     *     * Want to get all new episodes delivered directly to your favorite device? Please subscribe (for free!) to your preferred method below: If youd like to use a method that isnt listed above, you can grab the RSS feed here. After listening to the show, please leave some honest feedback on iTunes by clicking here. Leaving feedback will help the show expand. This means additional questions to help you expand your knowledge! Thanks for listening! Transcript What’s up? Welcome to episode #5 of 10 Minute Money Tips. Glad you’re joining me this week. Hope you’ve got a great day so far and let’s jump right in. Today I want to talk about retirement, more specifically how much do you need to save for retirement because that’s a question that I get asked quite frequently actually. And I’m going to start off by saying that it depends. That’s kind of the answer to everything at personal finance sometimes, but it really does depends. There’s no magic number out there that everybody should save, like 10% of your income or you need to have $1 million in your portfolio in order for you to retire because everybody’s retirement is different. You see, your retirement may be completely different than mine. You may be okay with living in a cabin in Wyoming and living off the land. If that’s the case, your retirement savings then probably don’t need to be that ample because you’re not going to need to spend as much money in retirement. However, if my retirement vision is owning two homes, one here in Maryland where I currently live and then I want to have one on the beach and I want to go to Europe and Asia 3 – 6 times a year, that’s going to take a lot more savings in order to make sure that I can do those things and that I don’t run out of money before I die. Who knows when that will be? Maybe it will be to the age of 60, maybe it will be 103. Who knows what’s going to happen with advances of medicine and also my family history, kind of looking back at that. You need to have enough to

Are you looking for ways to increase your credit score? Well, before you dive in, be sure to listen to this weeks episode of 10 Minute Money Tips. You may be surprised by my stance. Push Play! Links and Resources Mentioned: Get Access to My Financial Toolkit Which Includes the 10-Week Email Series on Increasing Your FICO Score How to Order, Read, and Understand Your Credit Report Access Your FICO Credit Score andnbsp; *     *     *     *     * Want to get all new episodes delivered directly to your favorite device? Please subscribe (for free!) to your preferred method below: If youd like to use a method that isnt listed above, you can grab the RSS feed here. After listening to the show, please leave some honest feedback on iTunes by clicking here. Leaving feedback will help the show expand. This means additional questions to help you expand your knowledge! Thanks for listening! Transcript Hello my friend and welcome to episode 4 of 10 Minute Money Tips. I hope you’ve been enjoying the last few episodes and I hope you have found some information that has been useful for you that you’ve been able to utilize and hopefully start getting on a better path financially. Before we get into today’s question, I wanted to read an iTunes review that I just received. It’s from MoneyPlanSOS and here’s what they have to say. They said “I listen to a lot of financial podcasts and after three episodes I can comfortably recommend to anyone replace Money Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips with Adam’s 10 Minute Money Tips. As long as he doesn’t start talking about building your credit score, I’ll be a faithful listener.” And as you could probably tell by the title of today’s episode, that’s exactly what I’m going to talk about today. I’m going to talk about how do I improve my credit score. And before I lose MoneyPlanSOS as a listener and before I may even lose you as a listener, stick around because you’re going to be a little surprised by what my response is. This question is one that I get quite often. It’s probably the second biggest question I get behind “where do I start, Adam?” And that’s a pretty general question. But this is probably the most specific question I get. “Hey Adam, how do I increase my credit score?” And my response to that is usually “well that’s not what you should be worrying about. You have other things that you should be worrying about compared to your credit score.” There

Have you racked up some debt and kept it a secret from your significant other? Do you have a spending problem that they dont know about? Find out how to work through your financial issues and then talk about them with your significant other. Push Play! Links and Resources Mentioned: 8 Tips For Talking About Money With Your Significant Other Create Your Battle Plan For Eliminating Debt 9 Tips and Tricks to Kick Your Bad Spending Habits Sharing Expenses in a Relationship andnbsp; *     *     *     *     * Want to get all new episodes delivered directly to your favorite device? Please subscribe (for free!) to your preferred method below: If youd like to use a method that isnt listed above, you can grab the RSS feed here. After listening to the show, please leave some honest feedback on iTunes by clicking here. Leaving feedback will help the show expand. This means additional questions to help you expand your knowledge! Thanks for listening! Transcript Welcome to Episode 3 of 10 Minute Money Tips. Today I’m going to talk to you about discussing money with your significant other and more specifically discussing finances with them when some of the issues or most of the issues that you may be facing were caused by you. Maybe you have separate finances and accumulated some debt on your side and they don’t really know about it or you’re running the household finances, they don’t know much about the financial situation of the household and you have also ran up some debt and they don’t know about it, how do you start a conversation when that seems to be the issue, when those are the things that you’re facing right now. That’s what we’re going to get into today. But first I do want to mention that talking about money in a household is very important. As you know, finances are the #1 reason for divorce in America. It’s very important that these discussions come up and you’re all on the same page when it comes to money. I applaud you, #1, for realizing that you have an issue and there’s something that you need to work with. That’s the first step in a series of many saying that “I know I have an issue. I know I need to work on it.” That’s crucial right there and I applaud you once again for getting to that point and wanting to start working on things. I’ve said it already that talking about finances in a relationship is very important and if you haven’t done it in a while and especially if some of the

Find out my thoughts on who needs a budget and why. Can you guess what my answer is? :-) Push Play! Links and Resources Mentioned: Setting Financial Goals Creating a Budget Youll Stick With andnbsp; *     *     *     *     * Want to get all new episodes delivered directly to your favorite device? Please subscribe (for free!) to your preferred method below: If youd like to use a method that isnt listed above, you can grab the RSS feed here. After listening to the show, please leave some honest feedback on iTunes by clicking here. Leaving feedback will help the show expand. This means additional questions to help you expand your knowledge! Thanks for listening! Transcript What’s up everyone? Welcome to episode 2 of 10 Minute Money Tips. Today I’m going to talk about budgeting. Some of you may be starting to cringe a little bit and say “I really hate talking about budgeting, Adam. I don’t even want to talk about it at all.” And honestly that’s actually one of the questions that I get asked a lot, is “do I even need a budget?” and my answer is always yes. You absolutely need a budget because you need to understand where your money is going. How much money do I have coming in? What are my expenses? Where is that money going? Is it going towards the things that I want it to? Am I meeting my goals? Am I getting out of debt? And a budget can really help you understand if that’s happening for you. One of my favorite definitions of a budget is that you’re telling your money what to do. You’re giving every dollar a job. So every dollar of income that comes in, you’re saying “hey, where are you going? You’re going towards my groceries. You’re going towards my vacation next year. You’re going on debt.” That’s what your budget can help you do. You’re sending that money somewhere. You’re telling it what to do. You don’t want to have any extra dollars kind of floating around out there after the end of the month because you know what; it’s very easy to spend that money then. It’s very easy to have that money be lost out there, going towards those wants instead of those needs. If you’re one of the people that cringed when I talked about creating a budget here at the beginning of the episode, you probably had a few choice words come to mind and one of those is actually the most popular word that comes to mind when people think about a budget is restricting. “Adam, I tried to create a budget b

Should I pay off debt or save? Am I saving enough for retirement? What should I do first? If youre asking yourself questions like these, you need to listen to this episode. Find out how to get yourself on the right path to financial freedom. Push Play! Links and Resources Mentioned: 8 Steps To Financial Freedom Setting Financial Goals Creating a Budget Youll Stick With National Association of Personal Financial Advisors Garrett Planning Network andnbsp; *     *     *    *     * Want to get all new episodes delivered directly to your favorite device? Please subscribe (for free!) to your preferred method below: If youd like to use a method that isnt listed above, you can grab the RSS feed here. After listening to the show, please leave some honest feedback on iTunes by clicking here. Leaving feedback will help the show expand. This means additional questions to help you expand your knowledge! Thanks for listening! Transcript: Hello and welcome to episode 1 of 10 Minute Money Tips. As I mentioned in episode 0, these first 5 episodes are going to be dedicated to the questions that I get asked all the time. Today’s question is “Where do I start?” I have a lot of people that come to me and say, “What do I do first, Adam? Should I save or pay off debt? Should I start saving for my kid’s college education? Am I saving enough for retirement? Should I do a combination of all these things?” It’s because of this that I created my 8 steps to financial freedom. It requires you to focus on one thing at a time so you don’t get overwhelmed with too many decisions. What are these 8 steps to financial freedom? Step 1 is establishing financial goals. I want you to know where you want to go before you start creating the plan to get there. I want you to take out a blank piece of paper and just write down all the financial goals you have for yourself, whether it’s getting out of debt, saving for your kids’ college education, saving for a new car. Put these things down on this piece of paper. When you have these down, take the information and move it over to a goal sheet and outline them in short term goals (a year or less), medium term goals (1-5 years), or long term goals (5 years plus.) Put these things down and just know that they’re not set in stone. You can erase them and put in new financial goals as you continue on with your life. The dollar amount doesn’t need to be there. It can be something motivating but just pu