Your Budget

Assessing Your Financial Values

When creating your budget and setting your goals, it may be helpful to look at how you think about money and why you make the choices you do. While money matters may seem like black and white issues, there can be many factors at play. Taking a look at previous financial decisions, your attitudes about money and your personal values will help you as you set your goals. Some questions to think about include:

Financial Values Guide Contains questionnaires and worksheets.

Setting Your Financial Goals

You probably have some ideas about the things you want in your future. One advantage of setting financial goals is that you know you have something to work towards. Sometimes you can get caught up in the day-to-day issues and forget to look at the long term plans.

Financial goals are the specific things you want to do with your money within a certain period of time. These goals can help guide the way you spend and invest your money both today and in the future. Take time to write down your goals so you can see what is really important to you and what you want for your future. Generally, financial goals fall into three categories:

• 1) Short term goals - things that can be done soon, generally less than one year
• 2) Short term goals - things that can be done soon, generally less than one year
• 3) Long term goals - things you hope to achieve in 5-10+ years

Helpful Tools When Considering Your Financial Goals:

A Beginners Guide to Securing Your Financial Future This resource covers topics including budgeting, investing, debt management, and building wealth. The workbook provides definitions to financial terms as well as activities to help you think about your money matters.

Reality Check Tool on iSeek This interactive tool can be used to see how career choices, salary, cost of living, and other aspect effect your overall life situation.

The Cost of Living in Minnesota The Jobs Now Coalition has created this tool to help you match hourly wages to your monthly budget planning. It identifies a family's basic needs and what it costs to meet them. You input your location in the state, your family size, and monthly budget factors. Be mindful that it does not include items like entertainment, loan repayments, or training costs. Use the Wage and Budget Calculator to get started.

Cost of Raising a Child This resource from the University of Minnesota Extension Department provides information including, monthly cost tables for various family sizes, to help you plan family finances.

University of MN Extension Resource Management for Daily Life
This site provides educational information and activities for you to make informed decisions about managing your personal finances, including: