Personal Finance
Term 2
21 November 2017
Using the S.M.A.R.T approach for evaluating Alice's goals, I can gauge how successful the outcome could be or what needs adjusted for future success. Alice has the goals to pay off student loan debts, buy a house and save for children's education, accumulate assets, retire, and travel round the world in a sailboat. All her goals sound great and are in the right direction, but to see if these goals are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely needs further evaluation.
The first step in evaluating the S.M.A.R.T approach is the "specific" aspect of the goal, while keeping in mind it must remain flexible enough for inevitable unforeseen circumstances. "A specific …show more content…
To make this goal less likely to fail Alice needs to identify how long she plans on making payments and at what cost to her, these variables ensures a clear route for avoiding financial instability. Alice then wants to buy a house and save for her children's education, which are two great accomplishments that needs proper financial planning and a time frame. Alice needs to identify her time frame for buying a house because if she has no achievement point there cannot be proper financial planning. With no proper financial planning in place Alice also cannot plan for her children's education fund, how much does she plan on contributing or how often? These questions should be addressed before initiating the goal, this will lessen the chance of financial failure. After achieving all her prior goals Alice wants to accumulate assets from her earnings and investments to benefit her, these assets will depend on her career choice and the current market. This goal deems to be worth the effort and hold priority in her life, considering Alice wants to retire and travel round the world in a sailboat. These three goals show financial planning for the future at an earlier stage, which is important for successfully achieving any long-term goal, but Alice lacks the financial specifics and time frame for these goals.
The next step in evaluating the S.M.A.R.T approach is the "realistic" aspect of the goal; this part helps you set your goals at a level where you can still achieve. This factor in the S.M.A.R.T goal planning is up to you to decide how high to set your goals, but it is also up to you to achieve them. Typically, one does not set their goals so high or unrealistic where it is very unlikely it would happen, like becoming a millionaire