5 Money Goals To Help You Succeed in 2024

As the calendar flips to a new year, some of you might have taken stock of what went well (and what didn't) for our bank accounts in 2023 and are formulating new goals in improving your financial health.

Perhaps you wish to hit your $100,000 net worth milestone in the new year.

Or perhaps you wish to achieve a 20 per cent paycheck bump within the next six months.

Maybe you simply wish to clear your high-interest debts (such as for credit cards and margin investments) and start anew on a clean slate.

Whatever your financial goals are, it is worth remembering that to succeed in your personal finances, you need discipline. Without it, most of us will fall victim to our natural tendencies of overspending (especially when lulled by temptation and discount offers!) and putting off investing until it is too late.

Benefits of goal-setting

In the early years of my financial journey, I set out concrete goals to hit and writing them down helped me achieve them. For instance, here’s my 2016 entry where I had set out my goal to hit $100,000 in net worth within the year and documented how I managed to pull it off.

Setting such goals can be helpful because they offer you a direction and a roadmap towards better financial health. When you write them down, they can help you rein in your spending, prioritise your savings and investments, and encourage better financial habits.

While we are still in the early days of 2024, it is a great time to start thinking and taking action towards the financial future that you want and deserve.

How to start and set your financial goals for 2024

First, keep in mind that this is a marathon, not a race.

Your initial excitement will wane and dissipate. If you simply rely on your transient feelings and motivation, you will likely fail spectacularly. Instead, craft specific, achievable goals and detail a plan with action steps to take and get you across the finishing line.

Here’s some steps to help you:

1. Start by assessing your current financial situation. 

1. Look at your earnings, and how much of it flows out of your bank account towards expenses.
   
2. Break that down further into fixed versus variable expenses. Fixed expenses include bills and financial commitments that you cannot run away (like your mortgage, allowance to parents and insurance), while variable expenses refer to line items that are within your control to reduce or eliminate entirely (such as dining out, shopping and travel).
   
3. Review your outstanding debts and monthly repayment obligations.
   
4. Calculate how much is left over.

Next, outline specific and measurable financial goals that will get you closer to where you want to be.

For instance, instead of simply aiming to “save more money in 2024”, set a more specific goal like “save 25 per cent of my income by the end of 2024”.

5 money goals to strive for in 2024

If you’re clueless on what goals to set, here are some examples to get you started:

1. Draw up a budgeting plan - Cultivate a detailed budget that accounts for all income sources and expenses. Track spending diligently and identify areas for potential savings or optimisation, such as putting certain spends on a different credit card instead to earn more miles or cashback.
   
2. Emergency fund - Aim to set up a safety net for your liquid cash so that you are cushioned against any unexpected financial needs. For instance: “I will set aside 8 months of living expenses by October 2024”.
   
3. Pay off debt - Prioritise paying off high-interest debts such as your credit card bills or balance transfers. If the amount you owe is high, then break it down into a smaller number each month until you fully clear the debt.
   
4. Start your investment journey - If you haven’t already started investing and growing your money, make 2024 the year you stop procrastinating and actually put this into action. Thanks to robo-advisors and low-cost brokerages that have emerged in the last five years, you can even set up and automate your investments within as little as an hour.
   
5. Refine your investment strategy - Develop or refine your investment plan that reflects your risk tolerance and long-term financial objectives. This is crucial especially if you have gone through significant life changes in recent times. If you’re not confident about your investment skills (or feel that you’re lacking), then set up a plan to get educated such as drawing up a list of books or blogs to read, or shortcut by signing up for a course.

Your finances need a spring-clean too

One way to kick off your finances improvement journey is to do a “spring cleaning” exercise by identifying the “leaky buckets”. The concept is simple: money we earn flows into our “bucket’, while the money we spend (whether deliberately or unknowingly) leaks out.

When you sit down to properly review your expenses throughout the year, you may realise that you have plenty of “leaks” from paying for goods or services that you hardly or no longer use.

In my case, this included paying for a health rewards membership that I was no longer using since 2018. For some of my friends, they’ve discovered unused gym memberships or online services that they had GIRO-ed or forgotten to terminate.

You can start now by eliminating unused subscriptions (like content streaming accounts), spend less on dining out, or even by setting up a standing bank transfer instruction to commit an extra $500 each month towards investing for you (or your child’s) future.

When you set your financial goals well and early in your working life, you are allowing yourself to let your money grow and compound over time.

That will bring you closer to financial independence and retirement.

Dawn Cher is a mother of two boys and the founder of financial blog SG Budget Babe. She has been setting and tracking her financial goals and progress over the last 10 years on her blog, which has helped her to hit a $500,000 net worth milestone this year despite buying a house and paying for more dependents (children and retired parents) in recent years.