Before ending the year, I received a Viber message from my friend Rey. He was asking tips on how to plan for 2017. Like Rey, my main concern is that I have so many things on my mind and so many things I want to do. Creating plans makes me more focused and helps me achieve things faster and more efficiently. I thought I shared in my blog before how I plan things, but apparently, I can’t seem to find it. I may have thought I shared it, but ended up no writing it! haha! So you see how planning helps me! I miss and forget a lot of things.

So my post for today is to share with you how we, as a couple, plan. You can try it out; it may or may not work for you. For us, we have been doing this for the past four years. It has been pretty helpful.
Vision Statement
The first thing that we do is we set a Vision Statement for 5 to 8 years ahead. Our chosen year is 2025. The vision statement that you create should be very specific. The one that we created as a couple revolved around living comfortably without having to worry about money. This is our vision statement:
For both of us to retire by age 45 and have passive income per month of at least Php 250,000 without any kind of debt.
We have also computed the amount of money that we need to have by that time to achieve that kind of passive income. Just to give you an idea, a pool of Php 14.5 Million can get you a passive income of Php 50,000 a month. With this, we need at least Php 72 Million worth of investments 9 years from now. Each of us need to earn Php 30+ Million (around Php 4 Million a year). Sounds huge, but we have to dream big, right? (Libreng mangarap!). My idol in this aspect is Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income. If he can earn around $1000+ a month, I know I can, too!
Mission
Aside from the vision statement, we also created a family mission. Our mission is:
A family that will spread knowledge through various media to help people grow and achieve their goals in life.
The mission that you come up with should represent what kind of change you want to create in this world. Analyze what talents, tools, etc. that you can offer so that the world becomes a better place. This will be the legacy that you will leave behind.
Define Goals for every aspect of your Life
We split our goals into 7 categories. Here are the categories that we have for this year: Goals related to our Daughter, Spiritual, Financial, Fitness & Health, Career, Mental and Start-up Goals. Of course, for your own goals, you will have to change it, unless we have exactly the same life (Haha! But hey, who knows?!). For each of the category, we listed different goals. Some may contain only one goal, while other categories may contain several.
For each goal, place the corresponding cost/resource/how much would it entail for you to achieve that goal. This way, you will be able to get the total financial value to make your goals a reality for this year.
Once you have that figure, please read this post that I made just last December:
http://mommyginger.com/2016/12/5-tips-investing-money-childs-future.html
It will give you an idea on how I invest that money that I have or the money that I will need to set aside for the future.
I really hope that this helps you plan for 2017. If you want a copy of our template, just click on this link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ttFczuGhM2dqDx3WVWlmj89fPJiW2weMrttmqI5JPO8/edit?usp=sharing
Please feel free to spread this and to share it with friends and family! Have an amazing start to 2017! Cheers!