What does your savings goal look like?

Product talk by Nuffnang

I don't believe that money makes people happy, but I do think it can make life a little easier and often less stressful. And having a family can be expensive (and I speak from experience). It's often a good time to sit down and re-evaluate your finances and goals. It can be really handy to put together a budget, even if you haven't done it before. There are extra expenses, often less income and a special little person or people who factor into planning your future.

My hubby and I are different in our approach to money and budgeting. Yes we have similar goals, especially now that we have a family, but I'm more of a spender and he is the saver.

But I will say, when I have a particular goal I am saving for I can knuckle down and save hard. When my hubby and I travelled overseas and saved for a deposit for our first home I had my goal and could see where I was heading. Once we had our home and mortgage, things changed a lot. Firstly, we didn't have as much disposable income and secondly, our big goal was to reducing the size of our mortgage while trying to build some savings.

I now have a new goal for my personal savings. I'm working hard to save for our first overseas holiday as a family. Once we had Miss S, I had visions of us heading overseas for a family holiday, similar to what we had done when we holidayed in the US for the first time in 2011. However after a 90 minute flight to Brisbane a couple of months ago when Miss S screamed for a large portion of the flight, I've had to rethink travelling with a child under two. So I'm now looking a little further into the future which means I have more time to grow my savings, bonus right!

I hope to travel to NY again, this time as a family 

Having a goal makes all the sacrifices and squirrelling away of money worthwhile. It's easier to forgo a new outfit or pair of shoes when the bigger carrot of a long, overdue holiday to a fabulous location is dangling over you. It's still a challenge to say no, but a little easier. 

A tool like myprosperity makes it easier to compile all your financial information and know its available in one place, making goal setting that much easier. If you're like me and have a few filing systems on the go, then it can be hard to keep a track of everything (tax time is lots of fun). Plus as everything moves online, I get so tired of having a zillion different logins and passwords all requiring strong passwords! Arrghh! 

So while I always have questions about the security of information and putting your details out there (definitely read the security policy and terms and conditions before signing up to anything), myprosperity can be a free handy tool to help you organise your financial resources and goals by category and hopefully help you reach them, big or small. Seeing where your money goes each week can help you find those spare few dollars each week to pop in a savings account for one of your goals.

Setting up a budget can be daunting and a bit overwhelming (all those spreadsheets and fancy formulas) but this is one tool that organises it all and not an excel spreadsheet in sight. And while a tool like this one will help organise financial information it won't take the place of investing your time and effort in knowing where you stand financially. It may prompt you to get your stuff sorted and head out on a bright new track and that's got to be a good thing right!

What are you saving for? Would a tool like myprosperity help you organise your finances and goals?