Achieve Savings Goals By Finding Your “Why”

I could have titled this post “How To Do Anything”. The answer is, you have to find your “why”.

Why do you want to save money? Most of us would honestly answer that one, “I dunno” or, “It’d be nice to have it in the bank” Because we don’t know why we want to. Now, I can blather on all day and tell you why you need to; for example, you need to save money in case you lose your job. You need to save money in case a family member gets sick. You need to save money in case the AC system breaks. Basically, you need to save money in case of an emergency.

None of that will motivate you! We all know what we NEED to do, but none of us do it. We know we need to have $20,000 in an Emergency Fund, but the truth is that the average American has only $4,000 in savings while a full 57% of U.S. adults have less than $1,000 to their name.

I can tell you what you need to have, and I can tell you HOW to get it; I just can’t tell you WHY you should do it. You have to figure that one out for yourself. But, I can maybe help with an example…I’m going to assume you have kids. Or nieces / nephews you really love. Let’s pretend for a second that one of them was sick. Now, this isn’t anything that’s going to happen in real life, it’s just an example to make a point. Let’s say your child was very sick, but there is a cure. It’s a foolproof cure that will save their life, but there’s a shortage of the cure and the only way, the ONLY way you can get this cure is to pay cash. It costs $5,000.

You have to pay cash, you can’t borrow money or use a credit card, and you can’t use any money you have saved up to this point. (hey my example, my rules LOL).

How fast could you come up with $5,000? If your “why” was the health and safety of your child, it’d be pretty darn fast. You’d sell a car. You’d work extra hours. You’d take an extra job. You’d have a massive garage sale. In a matter of days or couple of weeks you’d have your $5,000. When your “why” is big enough, you can do almost anything.

You can do all those same things to build your Emergency Fund. You can do all those same things to pay off your debt. You can do all those same things to Do Better With Money. But will you? I don’t know. Only you know your why, and how far you’re willing to take it to succeed.