The Simple, Almost Surefire Way To Achieve Long-Term Financial Success

By Maggie McGrath

Over the course of the FORBES 30 Day Money Challenge, you’ve been asked to check in on your income, track your spending, consider your financial priorities and more. What we didn’t tell you in the beginning of the month is that all of this was a way of building up to the last challenge in the series: create a long-term financial plan.
On their own, the words “long-term” and “plan” can be intimidating; when used together, they can be downright fear-inducing. But if you feel that way, I have two pieces of good news for you. The first is that just because it’s for the far future, a plan doesn’t have to be complicated. It can be one page, in fact. The second piece of good news is this: if you’ve been following along with our month of money, you’ve already started creating your plan. You just didn’t realize it.
Different financial planners will build a financial plan in different ways – some may have you think about your goals first, and then go from there – but in general, one of the best first steps you can take towards making a financial plan is to determine where you are right now. If you don’t know how much money you’re making, spending or saving, it will be impossible to figure out where you need to go from here. So, if you haven’t already,check in on your paycheck to see how much money you’re netting; if you don’t like what you see, read this to learn about how you could boost that income.
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