The Juggle – Prioritizing Your Financial Goals
Blog post
08/20/25Today’s 30 and 40 something couples have many balls that they are juggling in their daily lives – work, taking kids to school and their extracurricular activities, planning family vacations, and having a few minutes to spend together, etc. The list can be overwhelming. The same can be said about family finances. Should we save to retirement accounts, pay down student loan debt, contribute to the kids’ college saving accounts – you get the picture. How do you know what should be the highest priority items?
Easy Choices
There is some low hanging fruit we can easily pick off when thinking about this myriad of choices. For instance, if your company matches your contribution to your company retirement plan up to a certain percentage, that becomes an easy choice. Don’t miss out on the free money your company is handing to you. Another good example of a prudent choice is paying down credit card debt. I was recently speaking with an individual who was contributing to his IRA and saving to a house fund while paying the minimum monthly amount on a mountain of credit card debt. The credit card company was charging more than 20% interest on this debt. This was a big fat pitch – stopping saving temporarily and have a singular focus of paying down your debt. While it doesn’t necessarily “feel” right to stop saving completely, it’s incredibly hard to generate 20%+ returns on your investments.
What’s Next?
But, if there are no easy choices, how do you prioritize all the financial needs that are nipping at your heels? Here are a couple of guidelines:
Set Goals –
Many clients we speak with have never had a conversation about how much they want to save for their children’s education. Do you want to pay 100% of the college expenses to an elite university? Or maybe just an in-state public college? Maybe the kids should have some skin in the game. How do you know how much to save if you don’t have a target? The same can be said about your retirement. When do I want to retire? Will I take a part-time job to supplement the income from the portfolio when I do stop working full-time?
Pay Yourself First –
After having completed step 1, make sure you make those contributions on the first of every month. Don’t wait till the end of the month to see what is left. You will rarely hit your target if your savings goals are always secondary considerations.
Spread the Wealth –
It’s rarely a good idea to focus on just one financial goal at the expense of the others, excluding unique situations like the credit card example mentioned above. So, if saving for retirement, contributing to kids’ education funds and establishing a house fund are all important goals, make sure when you set those targets that you consider the amount needed to meet the goal, the time horizon for the goal and your monthly free cash flow. Then, divvy up the dollars available on an appropriate basis so that all your goals can be achieved.
Track Your Progress –
One of the exercises we go through for our clients, especially our emerging wealth clients, is to review their savings goals at the end of each year. This allows our clients, with our assistance, to evaluate their progress and adjust on a frequent enough basis to make timely adjustments. Waiting for long periods of time before looking back to see how you are doing eliminates the ability to “catch-up” on certain goals if you have fallen behind for some reason.
Hire an Advisor –
As your finances get increasingly complicated – your income has gone up, you receive incentive compensation, you’re not sure how to invest the nest egg you have built – the best option is to hire a financial professional. More than likely, they have dealt with situations very similar to yours with other clients and can offer both expert advice and experience in structuring the best approach to help you meet your goals.
Your family’s finances can create stress and anxiety given how many decisions young families have to be concerned about today. But taking the time to go through the steps outlined above will reduce stress and give you confidence that you are on the right path to financial freedom.
If you have questions and would like to talk with us further, please call us at 513-271-6777. For more THOR reading, click here to go to the Blogs and Market Updates section on our website. Follow us on social media: