Financial Goals for 2017

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of SunTrust. The opinions and text are all mine.

I hope your year is off to an amazing start! I still can’t believe it’s 2017 already. Last year flew by way too fast but I was grateful for the holidays so I could relax and reflect.

I always to try finish my holiday shopping early each year so I can disconnect and be present with friends and family during the last two weeks of the year. This was difficult to do this past holiday season since it seems like I kept forgetting little things on my to-do list, but I still managed to have a great holiday season.

My favorite part of celebrating the holidays was getting to spend so much time with family. It’s weird, because I live relatively close to my family, but life tends to get in the way throughout the year so I look forward to times we can all get together.

My in-laws both had birthdays over the past few weeks so it was nice to get together with them to celebrate and we also visited their house on Christmas Eve. I spent Christmas day relaxing at my house and watching my son play with his new toys and I celebrated Kwanzaa with my family right after Christmas which was the perfect way to gain clarity, think about my purpose and round up end the year. You can check out some of my photos taken toward the end of the year on my Instagram page.

My Main Focus For the New Year

I’m not really good at implementing an official theme for the new year but I do like to focus a majority of my time and energy somewhere. I think everyone should do this actually.

Setting resolutions can really help you put things into perspective and possibly even weigh you down especially if you didn’t make some of the changes you intended to make last year.

It doesn’t have to be so difficult though. I get pretty tired of the whole ‘new year, new me’ trend because I know it’s not realistic or helpful. I like to set goals throughout the year and not just because it’s January and everyone else is doing it. I also don’t expect to reach my goals without putting in the hard work in effort.

That being said, I’ll probably always set goals in one form or another each year. It help me acknowledge where I am currently, focus on what I want my future to look like and add some structure to my year. I love structure 🙂

Financial goals are among the top 5 types of goals people set. It’s safe to say personal finance is a big deal.

While I still have a few financial goals I want to reach, I also want to focus mainly on simplicity and continuing to live intentionally this year.

I recently took SunTrust’s Mental Wealth quiz which was much needed because even though I’m passionate about finance and write about money all the time, I don’t want it to consume me or add stress to my life. My main focus for 2017 is to reduce and eliminate stress in various different areas of my life.

My family’s medical history involves anxiety and high blood pressure unfortunately which had a direct link to stress. The mental wealth quiz is a great tool to see where you’re at in terms of your financial situation as well as what you need to focus on in the future.

My results were that I’m doing pretty well but need to take a step back from my financial flow and examine what matters most to me. My results also suggested that I focus on avoiding impulse buys and embrace value-based spending – I totally agree with this and have been talking about value-based spending quite a bit actually on other sites I write for!

My 2017 Goals

Each year I try to keep my goals simple, attainable, and concise because I find it helps me maintain my focus better. Long gone are the days where I used to set dozens of goals and overwhelm myself.

Double My Business Income

Last year I started working for myself full time and experienced a lot of success with my business. I also focused on taking things slow and easing into my new lifestyle so I wasn’t marketing myself as aggressively which is why my income basically plateaued.

I’m definitely okay with that and I embraced the ‘down time’. However, this year, I know I need to become more of a go-getter again. I signed up for an extensive branding training program which should help me improve my business and its’ impact. I also want to earn a certification that will allow me to teach personal finance to other people in my community.

My goal is to take a lot of action this year to diversify my income so it can increase by 50%. A 50% income increase would really help me be able to save more and meet some of my other long-term goals.

Pay Off My Student Loans

This year brings some exciting news. I ran some numbers and figured out I’ll be able to pay my student loans off no problem as long as I keep setting aside around $800 per month to make extra payments with.

If everything goes well, I should be student loan debt free by the end of August!

Contribute At Least $150 Per Month to My Roth IRA

I’ve been known to put investing on the back burner in order to pay off debt and I’m finally getting better at balancing both of these priorities. Last year, I focused on saving more money and building up my emergency fund but this year, I’d like to commit to showing my Roth IRA some more love.

My contributions may not be much this year, but they’ll make a difference in the grand scheme of things.

That’s it for my main financial goals. Some of my personal goals include:

• Exercising an average of 4 days per week
• Becoming a more patient person
• Limiting time spend on social media (even if I only make a little progress on this one, it will help)

What are you goals for 2017? Where do you think your mental health stands?

At SunTrust Bank their purpose is lighting the way to financial well-being. When you feel confident about your money, you can save for your goals and spend knowingly on what matters most to you.
The onUp movement was created to guide millions of people one step at a time towards a more financially confident life without ever losing sight of the moments that matter along the way.

Join the growing number of people transforming their stress into positive motivation to move onUp.

At SunTrust Bank their purpose is lighting the way to financial well-being. When you feel confident about your money, you can save for your goals and spend knowingly on what matters most to you.  

The onUp movement was created to guide millions of people one step at a time towards a more financially confident life without ever losing sight of the moments that matter along the way.

Join the growing number of people transforming their stress into positive motivation to move onUp.

Join the movement