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Many personal finance goals such as saving up a house down payment take years to achieve. Speaking from experience, scrimping and saving for a reward that’s years away can be difficult. Sometimes you might feel like giving up and going on a shopping spree instead of adhering to your strict budget. So how do you motivate yourself to keep pressing on toward your goals when you’re out of willpower?
One strategy I use to stick to my personal finance goals when the going gets tough is creating a personal finance vision board. It’s a collage of images that represents your financial goals. When I was saving up for a down payment, I made a collage of pictures of homes I’d love to own one day and furniture I hoped to put in my new house.
Believe it or not, creating this kind of collage can make it easier to achieve your financial goals. Here’s why you should make a personal finance vision board if you’re losing the motivation to save money.
Vision Boards Help You Remember Why You’re Saving Money
When you’re saving for a far-off financial goal, it’s easy to forget the true purpose of the money you’re socking away. You may start viewing your personal finance goals as numbers you have to hit and forget the reason why you started saving money in the first place.
Creating a vision board can help you visualize the positive impact reaching your goals will have on your life. Say you’re saving up a vacation fund so you can take a dream trip to Barbados. Making a collage of the white sand beaches you’re going to visit and the delicious Caribbean food you’re going to eat will reignite the excitement you once felt about reaching your goal. Seeing photos of the beautiful Caribbean sea on your vision board every day will make it easier to stick to your budget and resist the urge to shop.
Creative Vision Board Ideas
It may be harder to make a vision board for certain financial goals like saving for retirement or an emergency fund, so you’ll have to get creative. Think about what kind of lifestyle you want in retirement. Gather photos of the hobbies you’re interested in trying or vacation destinations you want to visit to help you picture yourself enjoying your golden years. The images on your vision board are the reward waiting for you if you stay the course and keep investing in your retirement accounts.
For an emergency fund, imagine how you’ll feel once you have a rainy day fund to cover unexpected expenses. Put words and phrases on your vision board that describe your feelings, like “security” and “stability.” If your emergency fund will help you sleep better at night, you could even include an image of a person enjoying a restful nap in your collage. A savings thermometer that you can color in as you get closer to your goal can also give you a visual reminder of why you’re saving money and motivate you to keep going.
Vision Boards Increase Your Chances of Success
Although there haven’t been a lot of studies on vision boards, preliminary research shows that they can make it easier to achieve your goals because they encourage positive thinking. Financial goals that are years away can start to feel unachievable. But creating a collage can help you visualize yourself crossing that finish line and envision how you’ll feel once you get there.
Looking at your vision board every day will give you hope that you’ll achieve your financial goals eventually. The sense of optimism you get from your vision board can motivate you to keep saving and increase your chances of success. Your positive mindset will also help you spot opportunities to increase your savings rate and accelerate your progress, which may allow you to achieve your goals faster.
How do you motivate yourself to save money toward your financial goals? Do you make a vision board or do something else? Share your tips in the comments section below!
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Image and article originally from www.savingadvice.com. Read the original article here.