Building Your Financial Plan

Building Your Financial Plan

by Casey Lewis

The room went dark.  After a few hours of humor and wisdom pouring from the stage, the crowd of 600+ people at Jon Acuff’s Start Conference grew silent.  We were given these tiny finger lights and told only to raise it in the air when something we saw on the screen resonated.  The black screens only projected a new phrase with white letters once every 15 seconds or so.

“You’re not good enough.”

“There are others that already do what I do.”

“You’re too old to start.”

“You’re too young to start.”

“You’re not smart enough.”

This simple idea was to have a visual representation of the voices of fear that speak so powerfully into our lives, and then to provide comfort in knowing we’re not alone as the room was lit sporadically by hundreds of finger lights.

But then, this flashed across the screen:

“I don’t have enough money to chase my dream.”

The room lit up faster than the end of Silent Night at a Christmas Eve Candle Light Service.  It struck a nerve.

To financial guys like me, this wasn’t a huge surprise.  A recent Wall Street Journal report tells us that 75% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.  The National Consumer Law Center says that 14% of Americans age 65 and up have a negative net-worth at the time of retirement.

The idea that someone doesn’t have enough money to chase after a dream isn’t a theory.  For many it’s a cruel reality.

But because you may not have $30,000 sitting in a savings account or you aren’t completely debt free doesn’t mean that you can’t make strides toward your dream.  It actually means the opposite.  It means you can hustle harder than you ever have before to clean up your financial mess and that by doing so you are actually doing one of the best things that you can to see your dream come to life.

Right now, today, you may think your financial situation is hopeless and that you’ll never be able to give up your day job for a dream job.  And right now, today, you may very well be right.  But lets fast forward 18 months and see that you’re debt free and have six months of your expenses sitting in an emergency account.  In addition to that, your dream job or business or side hustle or whatever you want to call it is bringing in a couple thousand dollars each month.  Now, do you feel hopeless?  Of course not!

All we need to do is put you in that financial position and here’s how:

A plan.

It’s that simple.  You just need a financial plan to get you to where your finances become your biggest contributor instead of inhibitor to chasing your dreams.

Here are 4 simple money steps to set your dream up for its best chance.

Step 1: Create a cash flow plan.

Yes that is a fancy way to say budget.  You need to make a plan for your money.

Step 2: Reduce expenses & Boost income.

If your dream really is as important as you say it is, you don’t need cable TV or to be eating lobster.  Slash your expenses as much as you can and then have a garage sale to get rid of your extra “stuff.”

Step 3: Kill Debt.

It’s very difficult to leave a day job for a dream job when you have monthly payments siphoning away all of your money.  Use the debt snowball method to eliminate all your debts.

Step 4: Build your “Dreaming Savings Account”

All that extra money you’ve been throwing at paying down your debts can be thrown into a savings account once you get rid of debt.  This dreaming savings account allows you the freedom to walk out of a job you hate when the boss yells at you one too many times.  It gives you the leverage to leap to your dream without the worry of your electricity being shut off.

By hustling to get your finances in order you may be doing one of the best things you can to make your dream become a reality.  Has this fear ever spoken into your life?  Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Casey Lewis is the author of the book Impact and the blog casey-lewis.com.  He works as a financial coach and speaker, helping people put their finances in a position that allows them to chase their dreams and make an impact in the world.  Check out his book at www.getimpactbook.com & follow on Twitter @caseynlewis