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Information about all aspects of finances affected by a serious health condition. Includes income sources such as work, investments, and private and government disability programs, and expenses such as medical bills, and how to deal with financial problems.
Information about all aspects of health care from choosing a doctor and treatment, staying safe in a hospital, to end of life care. Includes how to obtain, choose and maximize health insurance policies.
Answers to your practical questions such as how to travel safely despite your health condition, how to avoid getting infected by a pet, and what to say or not say to an insurance company.

Summary

To set personal goals, take the following steps which are each described in the other sections of this article:

Define Your Goals

To help you figure out what your goals are, ask yourself the following questions:

Question 1. Is the goal realistic, given my medical condition and current and expected income?

Question 2. How much will the goal cost and long would it take to achieve?

You don't need to know the precise answer at this point. However, if you want to save $50,000 to buy a sailboat, that clearly will take more time than it will to save $2,000 for a dream vacation in London.

Question 3. How will achieving the goal benefit me in the short run? The long run?

Think about why you want to achieve your goal and how achieving it will benefit you. Will you sleep better at night? Get immediate gratification? Improve your quality of life in the long run? Some other satisfaction? Which of these benefits is most important to you?

When thinking through the answers to this question, let go of what your family or society in general might expect of you. For example, many Americans are expected to want their own home. However, if you have a sweetheart rental deal and no desire to deal with the problems home ownership involves, you may feel comfortable just remaining in your rental. (Please do not take this suggestion to mean that we are suggesting you forget family obligations etc. We are merely suggesting you use your current situation as a spur to open your thinking.)

Question 4. What would I have to sacrifice to accomplish my goal?

Unless you have a lot of extra income -- or win the lottery - accomplishing financial goals takes money and time. Is the goal important enough to you so that you will be willing to work more or spend less on other things to accomplish it?

Question 5. What are the consequences of not achieving my goal?

If you don't achieve your goal, could you be worse off? For some goals, like having an Emergency+Fund or getting adequate health or property and casualty insurance coverage, the answer could be yes. Goals that if unachieved can hurt you financially should be given top priority.

To Learn More

Related Articles

Emergency Fund

Prioritizing Your Goals

Use the same factors you considered in defining your goals to put your goals in order according to how important they are to you. 

Based on your current health, the table below will give you a suggested order, but think about what is most important to you.   Remember, there is no right or wrong. Note, too that you can work on different goals at the same time. To make your own list, see Your Financial Goals Worksheet.

                                                                                              Traditional Goal Hierarchy

  1. PROTECTING AGAINST LOSS OF ASSETS
  1. ESTATE PLANNING
  1. EMERGENCY+FUND
  1. DEBT REDUCTION
  1. SAVING FOR RETIREMENT OR DISABILITY
  1. SAVING FOR VACATIONS & PURCHASES
  1. CAPITAL ACCUMULATION

 

 

Suggested goals for a person with a statistical life expectancy of less than two years.

  1. ESTATE PLANNING
  1. PROTECT ASSETS
  1. SAVE CASH for emergencies
  1. SAVE CASH to supplement disability income.
  1. SAVE CASH for purchases/vacations (carefully)
  1. REDUCE DEBT

Your Financial Goals Worksheet

The following worksheet will help you prioritize your goals. When you are finished, click on importance, timeframe, or cost to sort your goals by that factor. You can save this worksheet in your notebook and/or print it out.

Goal

Importance

Timeframe

Cost

To help identify your goals, read the suggestions above. Note that we include blank spaces to enter goals not listed here.

Once you identify your goals, number them in order or priority, with #1 being top priority. For example, if you have 3 goals, number them 1 - 3. 

Insert the number of months you estimate will be needed to accomplish each goal.

Enter in whole dollars the amount you need to accomplish your goal.

Increase Assets

 

 

$

Protect Income

 

 

$

Savings For Retirement / Disability

 

 

$

Fund An Emergency+Fund

 

 

$

Buy  A Home

 

 

$

Buy _____________________

 

 

$

Buy _____________________

 

 

$

Travel to _________________

 

 

$

Travel to _________________

 

 

$

Pay off  Debt

 

 

$

Make Home Improvements

 

 

$

Save For Education

 

 

$

Start  A Business

 

 

$

Provide Money  For Heirs

 

 

$

 

 

 

$

 

Common Goals And Ideas To Help You Achieve Them

Set up an Emergency+Fund

An Emergency+Fund is a fund of ready "cash" for emergencies. For example, if you lose your job or unexpectedly find yourself disabled, an Emergency+Fund can help you maintain your standard of living while looking for a new job or waiting for long-term disability benefits to start. Since insurance often doesn't pay for new treatments, the fund might also include money to pay for new treatments for your condition.

For help in deciding how much your fund should be, see Emergency+Fund.

To find out how much you need to save each week or month, and find out what investments might be appropriate, see Saving To Meet Your Goals.

You don't have to fund an Emergency+Fund overnight, but now is the time to start. Even if you only put away a few dollars a day -- start now. When you're tempted to spend that extra unnecessary buck, think instead of what would happen if you needed to tap into the Emergency+Fund and there's nothing there or it's not enough to get you through.

Protect against the loss of income and assets

Adequate insurance will help protect against unnecessary and unsustainable economic losses. The following articles will help you evaluate your current coverage, determine how much coverage you need, and even show you how to get insurance that you might think is not obtainable.

To protect your income in the event of disability, see:

To guard against crushing medical bills, there is:

To protect your assets, see: Property/Casualty Insurance

Get out of debt

A lot of people want to get out of debt, but few ever do. If you are in debt, achieving all of your other financial goals will be much more difficult. See Managing Your Debt for advice on paying down your debt.

Since credit can be a friend (to have, not necessarily to use), consider maximizing your credit or getting it if you don't have any Credit.

Plan for the possibility of death or incapacitation

Even people who just completed the Boston marathon need to be prepared for the possibility of death or incapacitation. To find out what you may need to do to protect your assets and your family should something happen to you see Estate Planning.

Save for education

Saving for your children's education or even to return to school yourself is an understandable priority. If you would like to start planning now to fund your children's education, try the following sites:

College Board's Online College Savings Adviser: www.collegesavings.com/ offsite link

Buy a home

Does the goal of buying a home still make sense? If your condition is serious, owning a home might not be worth the stress and time that can be involved. If you do want to purchase a home, you'll usually need two things: a down payment and good credit. Sources of a down payment can include a life insurance policy, retirement plan, or saving from your current income. See Getting Money out of Your Retirement Plan, New Uses of Assets -- Life Insurance, IRAs, and Credit.

Home improvements

If you already own a home, you might want to make improvements to it to make it more livable or worth more or to accommodate changes in your physical condition. One way to pay for improvements is with a home equity loan.

Start your own business

Starting your own business can be exciting, gratifying, and expensive.

Buy something

Before you make a major purchase, such as a new car or state-of-the-art-surround-sound- flat screen t.v., consider if spending the money is worth sacrificing other goals. If you decide to go ahead, think about whether to pay for the purchase with cash or credit. If you decide to use cash, will you have enough cash or credit if you have to pay for future health care? Also see Saving To Meet Your Goals.

If you use credit, consider whether or not you should get credit insurance on the purchase.

Save for retirement

Because of the many tax-advantaged retirement plans and the difficulty of determining how much you need, we have a section on Retirement Planning that includes advice on allocating your retirement saving dollars and a calculator to help make some estimates according to your situation.

Save for disability

If you do not have adequate disability income insurance and your condition could disable you, save as much as you can so that you're prepared "just in case." To figure out how much you'll need, see Financial Planning for Disability.