 Everyone has a dream about life, how they want to live, how they want to travel and how they want to care for their loved ones. However, your lifestyle will depends on the planning and executing a successful financial strategy. A complete portfolio may have different meanings for different people but most common definition means that you have a comfortable amount of money saved for emergency, have a well funded retirement account and you manage your debt load very responsibly. Achieving all these goals may be difficult but if you follow our step-by-step guide and continue to monitor your progress, your dream portfolio may be lot closer than you think.
If you're ready to change your life and willing to make decisions that may be painful in short terms, you're more than ready to follow this article. First thing you want to do is to draw a complete picture of your financial life at the moment. You need to sit down, take out a pen, and make a list of everything you own (e.g., assets such as cars, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, cash, bank accounts) and everything you owe (e.g., liabilities such as student loans, credit card balances.) Be brutally honest - don't keep something off the list because you'll "get to it tomorrow", or "it isn't a problem." The key to changing your life is to determine exactly where you stand now, in this moment in time.
Once you have done that, take a close look at the picture below. This is a very simple yet powerful representation of a successful financial planning. Put yourself right in the middle and start looking at each box to see where you stand. If a box is closer to you it is more important than the box that is far off. Compare these with what you have just written down on your sheet. Do you have your picture identical to the one shown here? If not, how close you are to this portfolio? There may be things such as college fund that are not important to you because you may be single or don't have children but you may replace that box with something else that is important to you. End goal is to come up with a clear and well defined roadmap for your financial life and how to get to your final destination.
Remember, there is lot more to life than just money but if your financial life is troubled, everything else will fall apart and you would never figure out why everyone cared about only money and not you. If you care for your loved ones, you owe it to them to make it better for them and if you manage your fiscal life well, others will follow. Your family and friends will benefit from your financial knowledge and being savvy and as you may already know the best way to teach your children about financial responsibilities and money is to lead by example. You may not be able to change the job you have or the financial circumstances you currently have, but making a commitment for a better future will definitely change the things that will happen in future and years from now when you would look back at your life, you would be glad that you did certain things that very few people can do.
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