How to approach your financial goals now

The year is about to fold itself in half, like a piece of paper with a dotted line across its middle. The paper folds in May, June through to July, as though in the hands of gods.

Ordinarily, folk would be prepping to take stock and self-evaluate, to check their year’s progress against their year’s goals.

They would be asking themselves questions such as, ‘What gives?’ ‘Have I been hustling steady or horsing around?’ ‘Have these past few months grown me into a better version of myself, or have I become a bad girl who will never turn good?’

Yet here we all are. In a different kind of paper fold from last year – in whose hands is this year’s paper, anyway?

It seems that we have folded into ourselves and the concept of time as a progressive factor exists in a parallel dimension that we have no real connection to.

We are neither moving forward nor standing still. We are stewing in a capsule of time, somewhat inert to anything beyond the pandemic’s headlines.

Those 2020 financial goals we set for ourselves now seem dwarfed in comparison.

It’s ridiculous to be worrying about these financial goals while the directive to stay at home draws the frightening fine line between life and death. So the next fundamental question is what becomes of these goals?

BASIC PRINCIPLES

Ultimately, all financial goals fall within the following four categories – save more, invest more, spend less or increase your income streams. That’s it.

These four are, after all, the basic principles of personal finance. Think of any goal you drafted and it finds its way into one or more of the above categories.

You also need money to meet these goals. Money, opportunity, discipline, self-awareness, legwork, a push factor, risk tolerance, certain level of technical skills, probably a mentor, maybe a financial advisor... it’s a varied cocktail of necessities.

We jumped into the New Year optimistic that achieving these goals was within our reach. Then we flipped the calendar to March, and no sooner had we settled into it than we plunged into the darkness of an alternate reality.

Most of us employed have been subjected to indefinite pay cuts or have been furloughed. Business owners are desperately dusting off their business continuity plans and scrapping whatever they can off the table.

The self-employed are frantically at the loose ends of a vast dust bowl. No matter where you earned your bread and butter, we are all wandering rudderless in the underbelly of a twilight zone.

One of my financial goals this year was to increase my streams of income by embarking on a personal project; the outcome of this project was something of a business product.

DISPOSABLE INCOME

I can complete the project during this quarantine, yes, but to whom will I sell this product to now that we are knee-deep in an indefinite pandemic?

Would it be smart to launch the product this year despite current circumstances? I don’t think it would be a smart move; it’s best to wait this one out.

No one has the disposable income right now to spend it on anything but basic living expenses, meeting their financial obligations and putting what’s left into that emergency fund we had been giving a side-glance. (Oh, we are also spending on liquor, and cooking and baking equipment for all those recipes we are collecting off the internet. I don’t know who needs to hear this but Instagram has seen enough of your cinnamon rolls and banana bread.)

We are all staying at home under survival mode. The foreseeable plan is to get out on the other side alive and in better health than we got in.

The long-term plan, well, beyond 2020 is to thrive; I believe. Which brings us back to our financial goals – this is neither the year nor the season to work yourself into a gunner’s knot for not meeting these goals.

The pandemic will be contained soon and when it does, you will pick up from where you left off. You can carry some of your goals into 2021, Inshallah.

Others you can drop all together. You can also use this time at home to get online and learn some of the new skills your goals may have required.

Either way, you will have something to show when the gods fold the paper next year.

Bett Kinyatti is a certified accountant with ACCA and a former financial auditor.