How Can I Get My Financial House In Order In 2024?

Many Oklahomans are looking to get their financial house in order in 2024.

That's why we're happy to welcome back Kristin Afelumo with HerPlanning to talk through how to set some financial goals and three best practices.

1) Define long-term vision

Autumn: So this is an important topic. Of course, everyone's always like, I gotta get my finances in order. But you have to have a plan. Absolutely. So it starts with having a vision, whether it be for the year, whether it be for the year or for years to come. Why is that so important?

Kristin: So incredibly important to have a vision. And I think about it like this, when I trained for my last 5k, our coaches had us run up to four miles every week and a 5k is 3.2 miles. But being able to know that I can run four miles efficiently makes it easy. When I show up to race day it's only 3.2 miles.

So what I mean by that is, a lot of times you're working on something that's slow and boring, and sluggish, like January, and you're just like saving every single month. And it's not that exciting. Having something in the back of your mind, that's 5-10-15 years out, that's really thrilling to you will help you get through those tough months of paying off your high-interest debt and doing boring stuff like,

Autumn: So just keep retirement on the horizon. Right?

Kristin: Yeah, and have a really good like vision of what retirement is too. Is it on a beach is are you going to move out of the country? What does that look like? What does it feel like? And thinking about that I'll help you stay motivated when you're doing less fun stuff.

2) Do The Research

Autumn: So how important is setting goals for something like this? So I'm assuming like maybe like, I want to say this much by this amount of time? What do you think?

Kristin: Right? So having the vision is a really big piece of setting the goal. So if I know that my vision is to retire by a certain age, or maybe I just want to buy three rental properties in Tulsa, I need to figure out one, how much does that really cost? Do the research, figure out what I would need to do in terms of steps to qualify for that big loan or whatever the case, and then you can break down your goal into smaller pieces and focus on that for just this year.

We really tend to overestimate what we can get done in a year and underestimate what we can get done in five.

Autumn: And so that's where I'm assuming someone like you may come into play.

Kristin: Absolutely. So if you have a ton of complexity if you're paying a lot of money in taxes, if you have three or four goals that you want to work on working with a financial advisor can help you prioritize, figure out how to invest winder, thus, how much to save for each of those goals.

3) Start Where You Are

Autumn: But what if you can't? What if you don't have the money to do something like that? Are there some resources or tools online that people can utilize?

Kristin: Yeah, so you can meet with a friend or meet with your spouse and say, Hey, here's my goals. They can hold you accountable the way I would if you were a client of mine. You can also use calculators online, you could Google "how much does it cost to retire" put calculator at the end and find a tool that can help you figure it out.

I find that working with an advisor helps if you've got a lot more complexity, or like I said have a ton of goals that you want to accomplish over the course of your lifetime. All