11 Sept 2015

Achieving Financial Goals Should Be Fun But Can Cause (Financial) Divorce

sijinius.com
source: strategicmodularity.com

Today, I want to shed some light on setting and achieving (financial) goals.

While sites like Tilt, Kickstarter and Gofundme are doing great, I have since discovered that everyone on earth has a financial project they are working at achieving at every point in time in life, and they could use a little help. That is what Credicoins is about. But I have concentrated (our model) on the developing world/economies because of the extent of poverty here.

Another site that is similar to our model of goal setting is Stickk created by Yale Economics Professor Dean Karlan.  He tells the story of how the site was founded after he and Ian Ayres, his friend and co-founder made a financial commitment to give up half of their salaries ($1000 weekly) to any charity of the other's choice if they do not achieve their set goal. He did shed off 38 pounds (about 17kg) weekly. Interesting isn't it?
Today the stats on the site reads:

$22,135,062
dollars on the line

279,877
commitments created

731,201
workouts completed

12,569,560
cigarettes not smoked

Not bad! You can check out this entrepreneur article for 5 other similar goals-setting sites/apps, this, and this too.

I still have my 3-year goal to become a (certified) PF expert
I started learning accountancy recently partly because of my 3-year mid term goal to become one of Nigeria’s leading personal finance experts. I don’t have to, but I think I can. Dr Ben Carson, the current Republican presidential candidate continues to inspire me. He not only dreams big and sets big goals, he pursues them. And I believe he will make a great president if he is elected. You sure can, if you think you can.
sijinius.com

What is crowdfunding?
In my series on 40 different ways to make money online (which I must confess I have put on hold due to reasons I have mentioned here), I was going to show you how you can make money from crowd sourcing/funding.
Crowdfunding is so popular today that some experts say that venture capitalism will giveway eventually to crowdfunding

If you have a project but lack adequate funds, or you want to raise funds for someone indigent, the sites above can really help you. We aim for Credicoins to help do this for the developing world when we take off, though we have put a different twist/model to ours. Ours looks at collaboration from the cooperative angle –which isn’t anything new in Africa- with the hope that we can make it fun for ‘poor people’ to also join the collaborative crowdfunding global community, actively.
sijinius.com

This cooler raised $13 million on kickstarter when it only wanted $50,000!

All goals are financial, even the non-financial ones
...so goals must have a budget.
You must have heard that goals must be SMART, i.e specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound. That is very true.

However, I add this- ALL GOALS MUST HAVE A BUDGET!

While it isn’t all our goals that are financial, every goal will eventually involve money somewhere along the line, and that makes it tricky when you refer to all goals as financial goals.

For example, a non-financial goal such as learning the guitar might require you to buy a new guitar, and/or employ a teacher. If you decide to go online to learn for ‘free’, you need to pay for internet connection (I am talking about Africa). So one way or the other, goals cross the financial line and you should be a good financial steward else you might not achieve your non-financial goals. 

Budgeting for your goal does not have to be tedious...just setting aside a little sum every month towards achieving it. And remember, where your money is, that is where your heart will be.


Set (financial) goals for your relationship and family, or you risk financial divorce
Honestly, I believe it is a sin for any couple not to set financial goals together for their marriage/relationship. That is tantamount to setting up yourselves for financial divorce (divorce before the main divorce).  Like I have just shown above, even non-financial goals qualify.

I have shown here on this blog that money is the #1 cause of marital distress (and even divorce worldwide), it behoves us to protect our relationships by being good financial stewards. And that starts from setting financial goals which we can then work together at achieving.
It does not have to be very big goals – start with anything, no matter how small. This will help bring you closer together and can even rejuvenate your marriage if you have not done anything (fun) together in a long while.

For example, you can raise money for a charity cause; you can help a (different) orphanage every year; you can volunteer at your local church every weekend (time is money); or, you can visit a children cancer ward together and grant someone’s last wish. And you can even start a joint saving account together (if you never had one), and save towards something you both agree on.

Achieving your financial goals will be fun with us
We (Credicoins) hope to bring out the fun in helping people achieve their financial goals. I hope you will join us when we launch to helping us (help you) realize and do big things.

To your success...cheers!

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