Are your finances broken or in need a repair.  Maybe you need to get out of debt or can’t figure out how to save money-even though everyone is telling you-”save for retirement-your next car, college, new home….”

I think you get the drift.

So what do you do to get started????

As many of my regular readers know, I am an elected city council member.  We are at a city retreat today.  Finishing up a day and a half of planning for the future.  I find these meetings extremely effective in getting our city moving, in what the council and mayor thinks, is the right direction.  We come up with milestones, or parameters to make sure our direction is being followed….

So what does this have to do with managing your finances?

Well the problem with most household finances, is that nobody is thinking about next week,   next month or the next five years.

So what do you do?

Have your own retreat.

Cardinal Flower or Lobelia Cardinalis Found on our city's Nature Trail

Set aside time for you and your spouse.  No distractions allowed.  No kids, cellphones, televisions.

Personal Finance Retreat Agenda:

• Where are you now?  In debt, drowning in bills, not being able to give to others?  Make sure you do a personal financial statement before the meeting.  Here is a link to my website where you can download a simple template of a financial intake assessment.
• Set goals for your family, both financial and personal-remember many personal goals affect your finances-do you want to save for college, save for a new house, save so you can give to the hungry in Africa, or your church?????
• Set a timetable for  your new goals.
• Set a spending/saving  plan to match your goals.
• Make as much of this become automatic-using technology and planning, so you don’t have to think about it.
• Revisit your goals on a schedule-have a mini-retreat every three months.

Now you may say, we can’t agree on what to have for dinner at our house, how are we going to agree on our goals and plans.

Well, our council is made up a diverse group of economic, religious, and racial backgrounds.  But our common bond is that we genuinely love our city, and want to make it better for our children and grandchildren.

Does that mean we agree-far from it.  We have lively debates on the best way to spend the limited tax dollars that are becoming more and more precious every day.

So you and your family, at least the ones old enough to have a say, (which means they bring in money, or work in other ways to help the household), need to come to a consensus.

If you can’t come up with reasonable compromises-maybe you have someone who is addicted to spending, an alcoholic or drug addict-then you may need marital, or other counseling,  to help with those all too real issues.

So go have your own retreat.  Make a few tough decisions about your spending….

You will be glad you did!