Looking at your mid-year personal finance check up, you can ask the all important question, “Now what?”, and as usual my mealy mouthed answer is, “That depends!“.

If you have met all of your financial goals for the year and it is mid-year, did you set your goals too low? Could be you sand bagged to make yourself feel good, or you got really lucky. No matter what reason, you can celebrate a little bit for achieving your goals, but now is the time to make some “stretch” goals for the end of the year, and prove that your success at the start of the year was not just a fluke and that you can work hard the whole year. Simply sitting on your financial laurels is just not the thing to do. Build from your success and show that you can finish strong for the year.

If none of your goals are met, and you think you will be unable to hit any of your goals this year, maybe it is time to re-vamp, or re-think your plan (or scrap it completely). Not to worry, look at where you had problems with your plan and figure out whether you were:

1. Too aggressive in your planning, and set unattainable goals
2. Very unlucky and the world conspired against your plan
3. You never really planned to follow this plan

Is the answer (3)? Don’t kid yourself, you need to plan, this is going to hurt you some time soon. If the answer is you were too aggressive then maybe go back to your original goals or plan, and maybe scale them back so that they might be attainable by the end of the year (but still make them challenging).

Things going OK? You think you can succeed with your plan, good for you, you have made a good plan, and you are following it. You can celebrate a little in your success, but get back to your plan. Enjoy your success and keep up the good work.

The Series

• Time for Mid-Year Financial Check Up never a bad time to see where you stand financially.
• What to look for in your Personal Finance Plan and how to deal with success and with failures.
• Mid-Year Personal Finance Check Up (Now What) always a good question to ask.